Mohawk selects Amut for PET washing line upgrade

Mohawk Industries upgraded its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) washing plant in Summerville, Georgia, with the help of Amut, Novara, Italy, this past fall.

Anthony Georges, Amut North America Inc. president, says Amut did a processing trial of Mohawk's dirty flake a few years ago using the Amut PET flake washing system, demonstrating the level of cleanliness that could be achieved and how much more efficiently Mohawk would be able to operate its fiber extrusion lines. As a result, Mohawk bought the 4,000-kilograms-per-hour (nearly 9,000-pounds-per-hour) flake washing system.

Mohawk Vice President of Recycling Operations Mark Dye says, "The Amut Friction Washer is a great machine for removing and cleaning our PET flakes, along with their Turbo washer unit, which assists in the removal of the inorganic fines that are embedded in the dirty MRF [material recovery facility] PET bottle bales. The cleanliness translates into improved performance in our downstream processes. Since we are a vertically integrated business with our own recycling plant, extrusion fiber operation and carpet manufacturing production plants, we are seeing the quality improvements immediately with a cleaner flake."

Dye adds that with the new washing line, Mohawk reduced water and chemical consumption in the cleaning process while achieving better quality.

He says the Mohawk engineering team worked with the Amut design, fabrication and installations teams on the project. "The challenges of working through COVID protocols were complicated, along with the massive flooding in our region this past summer, shutting down the area, yet the teams rose to the challenges and were successful in the implementation of the line into our existing system."