Page 18 - RB-69-14-2

COMPANY NEWS
The opening of Conti’s Hannover- Stöcken retread plant
Christian Sass welcomes guests to the inauguration of the new plant
The all new hot cure press line
Continental Brings Retreading into the Space Age with New ContiLifeCycle Plant
It has to be said that it’s not very often that you enter a retreading plant and are left with the feeling that you are in a film set for a science fiction movie, but that was the immediate impression when Continental lifted the curtain on their new ContiLifeCycle Plant in Hannover-Stöcken on Tuesday 19 November.
industr y-scale rubber recycling unit.
Continental spared no expense. The new plant, which has been recognised as an environmental innovation by the German Federal Ministr y of Environment, was opened in conjunction with a new 15 million Euro Technology Center in the presence of Nikolai Setzer,
possible. We have put all of our knowledge from tyre engineering and manufacturing into the ContiLifeCycle Plant and thus reached a new level in terms of product performance and characteristics.”
Based in Hannover-Stöcken, the new retreading factor y, built with the help of a grant from the Environment Ministry under the German Government’s Environmental Innovation Programme, will have a projected annual capacity of 180,000 retreaded tyres once it has reached full capacity, including 150,000 Contire mould cure retreads and 30,000 pre-cure retreads using Continental’s ContiTread tread strips. The 17,000 sq m open plan facility, which includes storage space for up to 16,000 casings, began production in September and
company’s factories in Petaling Jaya (Malaysia), Cuenca (Ecuador) and Morelia (Mexico).
The company has also developed an on-site training facility, the ContiLifeCycle Academy, in the plant for training both internal and external staff on different topics of retreading.
As part of the ContiLifeCycle Plant, Continental has developed a recycling process for the buffing dust that arises during retreading. The tread powder is put through a series of different processing steps to reverse the curing process. The recycled material is claimed to be of such high and controlled quality that it can be used for tyre compounding without hesitation,” remarks Dr. Boris Mergell, Vice President Product Development & Industrialization Commercial Vehicle Tires at Continental. Tread
Against a backdrop of suitably dramatic music, smoke and strategically placed lighting, the curtain that had hidden the plant from the eyes of the waiting guests was raised to reveal a line of pristine new Marangoni presses opening in sequence opposite a conveyor belt carrying a row of perfectly cured retreaded tyres. All very dramatic and definitely nothing I’ve ever seen in a retread
the head of Continental’s tyre division and Olaf Lies, Minister for Economy, Employment and Transport for the State of Niedersachsen.
The new ContiLifeCycle plant is being promoted as a significant strategic step for Continental and is fundamental to the company’s LifeCycle business.
“When we started this project, our aim was to bring our LifeCycle
plant before.
But that is precisely the point. The new facility is a world’s first in that it integrates a state-of-the-art hot and cold retread facility for bus and truck tyres with a proprietary
solution closer to new tyre production,” said Setzer. “Within a time frame of less than 18 months, we planned and built a plant that not only catered to necessities, but pushed the boundaries of what is
is gradually ramping up production. The plant is currently only running one shift but according to Christian Sass, Head of Retread Business Truck Tires EMEA, the plan is to operate a three shift production over five days.
Most of the equipment in the plant is from Marangoni including the very latest computerized buffing equipment using different buffing contours and additional sidewall brushing, as well as an Alpha Twin buffer. The plant also includes a shearography machine from SDS- Systemtechnik and inspection equipment from Akar Makina. The envelopes used in the pre-cure plant are from Kraiburg.
The ContiLifeCycle Plant is intended to serve as a competence centre for the company’s other LifeCycle businesses on a worldwide basis. These include the
buffings from Continental’s new ContiLifeCyle retreading factory will be completely used in the recycling facility. This results in the reduction of waste by more than 80 per cent and significant CO2- savings.
Continental has actually used conventional recycled rubber in serial production since 2009 at a level of 3%. However, according to Mergell, the new facility has the potential to increase the rubber recycling share to 6 per cent due to the fact that the ContiReclaim can be used in areas where conventional reclaim can’t be applied. The capacity of the recycling plant is 4,000 tonnes of material per annum.
18 Retreading Business