Cooling Systems for Plastic and Rubber Processing

2. MITA Cooling Technologies' solutions for the plastics industry

MITA Cooling Technologies offers tailored solutions to meet the needs of the plastics and rubber industry.

• Industrial process chillers: for high-efficiency cooling of molds and processes, with very low outlet fluid temperatures.
• Adiabatic dry coolers: solutions that take advantage of adiabatic cooling, ideal for sustainability and water-saving needs.
• Cooling towers: systems with high efficiency through the use of water.

MITA’s systems can be equipped with remote control for centralized and timely management, facilitating predictive maintenance interventions.

3. Examples of industry processes served by cooling technology

Speaking of cooling in plastic and rubber processing, we deal with processes that are heterogeneous with each other. Thus, here are three examples.

• Plastic injection molding: fast cooling of plastic molds and components to increase productivity and prevent deformation.
• Rubber and plastic extrusion: temperature control for uniform, defect-free processing.
• Bioplastics industry: customized solutions for environmentally sustainable materials with specific temperature and environmental control needs.

4. Focus: cooling technologies for plastics molding

Molding is a typical example of a case where cooling technologies can be applied to plastic processing.

Plastic molding machines are equipped in a granule tank for the raw material from which the part is to be made. The granule is heated and melted, before being pressurized into the mold.

The mold is usually fully automatic, so that the opening and ejection of the part takes place without manual intervention. Inside the mold are channels that are used to cool the mold itself and, more importantly, the molded part: for this cooling, a refrigeration unit is usually required since the water temperature must be very low in order to allow for fast cooling (to avoid material shrinkage and to allow for higher productivity).

Injection of the molten plastic material into the mold is accomplished by an oil hydraulic system, for which pumps are used that need to be cooled with water.

The use of the evaporative cooling tower, or other cooling technology, is possible for this section of the process: in fact, we are talking about simple heat dissipation for which no particularly low temperatures are needed.