Container manufacturers such as Petainer receive PET resin in the form of small cylinders called pellets. These are melted at 270°C and injected under high pressure into a mould to make a preform – a test tube shape that is smaller than the finished container that it will become but with thicker walls.
The preform is then reheated to around
110°C and blow-moulded into its finished form in a separate machine by injecting high-pressure air that forces the material into the exact shape of the water-cooled mould in which it is placed.
The productivity of the industry has increased enormously since Petainer first began making PET bottles in 1983. Injection moulding machines used to 16 preform cavities per injection mould. They now contain up to up to 144 preform cavities per injection mould and can produce around 1,600 bottles per blow mould per hour.
Between them Petainer’s two manufacturing plants can produce over one billion preforms and 500 million bottles every year. Our plant at Aš can produce more than 5 million preform sets per year for PET kegs – the largest capacity of any plant in the world.
European Commission funds have been used to train and develop Petainer staff at Aš. Money from the Commission’s European Social Fund (ESF) has been used to help staff acquire new skills, improve personal development and further their careers. Funding support began late in 2009 and will end soon.
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