A process and system for rapidly fabricating small batches of powder coating compositions having desired colors from one or more solid input filaments. An additive manufacturing filament fabricator feeds one or more single-color solid polymer input filaments into a heated mixer in accordance with an input formulation to be liquefied and mixed to produce a homogenous extrudate mixture. The extrudate mixture is solidified on an extrudate receiving platform and is then comminuted by an extrudate mill into a finished powder coating composition having a desired color.

The present invention comprises a method. The method comprises selectively feeding color masterbatch thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules to an extruder from a first gravimetric feeder operatively connected to a computing device and adapted to receive signals from the computing device to control the amount of the color masterbatch thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules dispensed therefrom and feeding non-colored thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules to the extruder from a second gravimetric feeder operatively connected to the computing device and adapted to receive signals from the computing device to control the amount of non-colored polymer pellets or granules dispensed therefrom. The method further comprises wherein the computing device is adapted to send signals to the first and second gravimetric feeders to separately adjust the rates at which the first and second gravimetric feeders each feed the color masterbatch thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules and the non-colored thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules to the extruder; wherein the second gravimetric feeders is sent signals to continuously feed the non-colored thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules to the extruder at a desired rate; and wherein the first gravimetric feeder is randomly sent signals to feed the color masterbatch thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules to the extruder at a first rate and randomly sent signals to feed the color masterbatch thermoplastic polymer pellets or granules to the extruder at a second rate that is different from the first rate.

The invention relates to a device and a method for inline quality checking for plastics during the production process, comprising at least two different measuring devices, wherein the device has a unit for sampling plastic melt from the production extruder, a unit for moulding a flat film from this plastic melt, and units for transporting the flat film to the measuring devices and for finishing the flat film.

A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament which, in various embodiments, comprises: (A) grinding recycled PET bottles into a group of flakes; (B) washing the flakes; (C) identifying and removing impurities, including impure flakes, from the group of flakes; (D) adding one or more color concentrates to the flakes; (E) passing the group of flakes through an MRS extruder while maintaining the pressure within the MRS portion of the MRS extruder below about 25 millibars; (F) passing the resulting polymer melt through at least one filter having a micron rating of less than about 50 microns; and (G) forming the recycled polymer into bulked continuous carpet filament that consists essentially of recycled PET.

A system comprising: (1) a grinding unit configured to receive and grind recycled PET bottles into a group of polymer flakes comprising up to about ten percent colored polymer flakes and balance substantially clear polymer flakes; (2) a washing unit configured to wash the group of polymer flakes; and (3) an extruder configured to extrude material in a plurality of different extrusion streams. The extruder may be further configured to: (1) receive a concentrate-polymer mixture comprising a mixture of the polymer flakes and a color concentrate; (2) melt the concentrate-polymer mixture to produce a polymer melt; (3) reduce a pressure within the extruder; and (4) pass the polymer melt through the extruder so that the polymer melt is divided into the plurality of extrusion streams. The system may then filter the polymer melt through at least one filter and form the polymer melt into bulked continuous carpet filament.