On February 16, we heard from the project owner that the construction of the first PMMA pilot facility in China, developed by Tianhua Institute of Chemical Machinery & Automation Co., Ltd. (Tianhua Institute), was completed on schedule and successfully started at one try, marking a technological breakthrough in this field.
PPMA, commonly known as the acrylic glass, is a transparent material with exceptional comprehensive performance. It boasts good transparency, chemical stability, dynamic performance and weathering resistance, easy to dye and process, and appeals to the eyes. It’s widely used in commercial activities, light industry, construction industry and chemical industry. It can also be used to make keratoprosthesis, a good news for patients.
What’s most important in processing PMMA is to ensure its transparency. But there are a lot of factors that might hurt its transparency, such as too much solvent residue, deteriorated materials, too many impurities and bubbles, etc. Hence the direct devolatilization and granulation equipment --- the core of the PMMA facility, is the key to removing solvents, low-molecular-weight impurities and gas and enhancing the transparency of PMMA.
While designing the PMMA pilot facility, Tianhua Institute aimed to address the problem that the status changes to materials, the complex operation system in the course of devolatilization and the normal structure of devolatilization tended to produce yellowish, poor-quality products, and even wastes. Thus it began by optimizing the facility structure and enhancing control precision, successfully developed China’s first dual-axis PMMA continuous devolatilization pilot facility of a brand new structure, which is capable of removing a lot of volatiles, ensuring the evenness of the operation system, and self-cleaning to some extent, producing highly transparent PMMA products.
Thanks to well-planned and orderly installation and debugging, the facility has been started successfully at one try on schedule. It’s learnt that the project owner will build more production lines and Tianhua Institute will be commissioned to do more research and develop more industrial facilities.