Flooring manufacturer and PET recycler Mohawk Industries finished updating its Georgia facility, including installing an AMUT flake washing system.
An AMUT press release noted that the Summerville, Ga., facility upgrade was completed in September 2022 following a previous trial with the equipment.
Anthony Georges, president of AMUT North America, said the trial demonstrated “the cleanliness of their material and how much more efficiently they could operate their fiber extrusion lines.”
Mohawk purchased AMUT’s 4,000 kilogram per hour flake washing system for the facility.
Mark Dye, Mohawk vice president of recycling operations, said 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.”
“The cleanliness translates into improved performance in our downstream processes,” Dye said. “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.”
The Mohawk engineering team worked with AMUT on design, fabrication and installation, the press release noted, especially as COVID-19 protocols and regional flooding posed challenges to the project.
“The teams rose to the challenges and were successful in the implementation of the line into our existing system,” Dye said. “The remarkable issue about the AMUT flake washing system is that we reduced the water and chemical consumption in the cleaning process while achieving better quality.”
