DCIM Technology
Direct Compounding Injection Molding - Clever compounding integration
Product information
With Direct Compounding Injection Molding (DCIM), an additional extruder with a single screw is adapted to a standard injection molding machine and enables the direct compounding of thermoplastics in an inline process. This allows material costs to be significantly reduced, in-house formulation expertise to be built up and a significantly reduced CO2 footprint to be achieved.
„The material quality lies with DCIM at ZF, and we have protected the expertise in-house, fully documented and tested."
Achim Härtel
Core Engineer Plastics bei ZF Alfdorf / Deutschland
- Significantly reduce material costs
- Tailor-made material properties
- Secure competitive advantage through recipe know-how
- Drastically reduce your carbon footprint
- Sustainable and material-friendly production
- Replacing complex multi-stage processes
- Space-saving piggyback position on the injection unit
- Special screw design designed for material compounding
- Process length extended to 30L/D for optimum material homogeneity
- Discontinuous operation tailored to the injection molding process.
- Fully integrated into the injection molding machine
=> Excellent compounding quality combined with maximum flexibility in both material recipe design.
- Individual component weighing
- Dosing device ideally matched to the type of raw material
- Partially integrated into the machine control system
- Proven technology from the compounding industry
- Free choice of dosing devices, from economical “grav. batch blenders” to high-end “loss in weight” devices
=> Perfect dosing technology for all types of matrix materials, fillers, and reinforcing materials
Injection unit with 3-zone screw and melt transfer:
- Short and flow-optimized melt transfer from extruder to injection unit
- Genuine melt temperature measurement and pressure monitoring at the transfer point
- Injection using a standard injection unit with 3-zone screw
- Automatic coordination of the two processes, extrusion and injection molding, by the machine control system
=> Well-known and proven technology for component filling combined with the requirements of compounding
Material feed for production without pre-compounding:
- Standard material hopper on the flange of the injection cylinder
- Easy selection and deselection of the compounding extruder on the control panel
=> Versatile application of the machine, even as a standard SGM without extruder
