This applies above all to production tools and machine components in the plastics processing industry and Carbon buildup on extrusion screws is not a nuisance — it is a production killer. When polymer residues char and harden inside the screw channels, output drops, product quality swings wildly, and every hour of unplanned downtime costs real money. The cleaning furnace you pick determines whether you fight this battle effectively or keep losing it. Getting the selection right means understanding your process, matching the equipment to your throughput, and refusing to settle for “good enough.”
Here, for example, microscopically fine spinneret systems produce the finest textile fibers and tear-resistant nonwovens, or blow heads weighing several tons produce several wafer-thin layers of transparent plastic film, each with individual material properties, in a single operation and invisibly join them to form a highly efficient packaging product.
The heated and therefore liquid plastics used for this purpose – some of which are equipped with (halogenated) additives to specifically modify or improve material properties – must not have even the slightest impurities or irregularities. For this reason, the melt is homogenized using increasingly fine filter systems before it is fed into the spinnerets or extruder dies.
If such tools and machine parts are now removed from the production process for maintenance purposes, the plastic that adheres and also remains on the inside cools and hardens. This is precisely where thermal cleaning comes in, in which the plastics (polymers/organic substances) are first decomposed into carbonization gases and carbon at temperatures starting at approx. 430 °C. The remaining carbon from this pyrolysis process is then completely removed in a thermal oxidation phase. This unique, material- and tool-specific combination of targeted pyrolysis and thermal oxidation takes place in special furnace systems.