Gorillabelt Screen Changer
Gorillabelt is built for the toughest recycling environments — delivering continuous melt filtration for post-consumer and post-industrial plastics with contamination up to 10% by weight. No cleaning cycle. No saturation limit. No production stops.
Post-consumer and post-industrial plastics carry contamination levels — metal fragments, aluminium foil, paper fibres, glass, cross-linked polymer — that saturate conventional screen changers in under two hours. According to AMI Consulting, contamination in post-consumer LDPE film streams typically runs at 3–8% by weight. At those levels, manual and hydraulic screen changers require 6–12 changes per shift — making continuous production operationally impossible.
Continuous Filtration Without Compromise
Gorillabelt handles post-consumer and post-industrial plastics with hard particle contamination — metal fragments, aluminium foil, paper fibres, glass, and cross-linked polymer — that would clog or damage a self-cleaning system within hours. Belt advances continuously through the melt zone; as one section reaches capacity, fresh belt feeds automatically from the supply roll.
Unlike self-cleaning systems that have a cleaning rate limit, Gorillabelt has no cycle to overwhelm. There is no filter cake building up — contaminated belt exits the melt zone and fresh belt takes its place continuously. The line runs 24/7 regardless of contamination load, with an accumulator system that maintains melt pressure during belt indexing.
The belt advancement mechanism is designed to carry contaminants out of the melt zone with minimal entrained polymer. Only the impurity-loaded belt section exits — not the melt. This minimises material waste and disposal costs compared to conventional screen changes where the polymer adhering to the screen pack is lost with every change.
Gorillabelt is optimized for post-consumer and post-industrial recycling streams where contamination levels exceed the operational range of self-cleaning screen changers.
For application-specific recycling filtration guides: PET Recycling Filtration · Blown Film Filtration · Polymer Melt Filtration Guide
Operating data from Gorillabelt installations across European and North American post-consumer recycling operations.
Both are continuous screen changers — neither stops the line for screen maintenance. The choice depends on the contamination level of your incoming polymer. Here is the decision framework.
Still unsure? See the full continuous vs discontinuous screen changer guide →
Watch a 3D animation with detailed explanations of GorillaBelt internal operation
Watch a double GorillaBelt installation running PE flakes
The Gorillabelt advances a continuous stainless steel mesh belt through the melt zone of the screen changer housing. Polymer melt is forced through the belt mesh, which captures solid particles above the belt’s aperture size. As the belt section in the melt zone becomes loaded with contaminants, the belt indexes forward — automatically advancing fresh, clean belt from the supply roll into the melt zone while the contaminated section exits on the other side. The advancement is triggered automatically by differential pressure (ΔP) reaching a set threshold, or on a continuous timed advance. There is no cleaning cycle, no filter cake removal, and no saturation limit — contaminated belt exits the system rather than being cleaned in place.
Gorillabelt handles contamination levels up to 10% by weight of the total melt stream — including hard particles such as metal fragments, aluminium foil, glass, ceramic particles, paper fibres, and cross-linked polymer. This is significantly above the operational range of self-cleaning screen changers, which reach their cleaning cycle capacity limit at approximately 3–4% contamination by weight. For post-consumer LDPE film streams — where AMI Consulting documents contamination at 3–8% by weight — Gorillabelt operates continuously without pressure disturbance or unplanned stops, regardless of contamination load.
No. Belt advancement during normal operation is fully automatic and does not interrupt melt flow or stop the extrusion line. The belt supply roll contains sufficient belt length for extended production runs; when the supply roll approaches the end, it can be replaced in a planned maintenance window — not an emergency stop forced by contamination. The line continues running throughout this process via the accumulator system that maintains melt pressure during belt indexing. This is fundamentally different from a manual or hydraulic screen changer, where every screen change is an unplanned event driven by filter saturation.
Both Gorillabelt and self-cleaning screen changers (such as the AP Series) are continuous — neither stops the extrusion line for screen maintenance. The difference is the filtration mechanism and the contamination level each handles. A self-cleaning system (AP Series) cleans the filter element in place using a mechanical cycle — effective at contamination below ~3–4% by weight, with filtration fineness down to 3 μm. Gorillabelt advances a new belt section rather than cleaning an existing one — there is no cleaning rate limit and no accumulation ceiling, making it the correct choice above 3–4% contamination. For detailed comparison, see the continuous vs discontinuous screen changer guide.
Yes — two-stage filtration with Gorillabelt as the primary gross-contamination stage ahead of an AP Series fine filtration secondary stage is an established configuration for high-PCR-content extrusion lines. The Gorillabelt handles the hard, abrasive particles — metal, glass, aluminium foil — that would damage fine filtration elements, reducing the contamination load entering the secondary AP stage. The AP Series then handles fine filtration down to 3 μm in a much cleaner melt stream, extending element life and maintaining the pressure stability required for quality-critical applications such as food-contact rPET thermoforming sheet. This architecture is specifically suited to lines targeting 40–65% PCR content under EU PPWR recycled content mandates.
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