₱85,000 a month back in your pocket.From day one.
For Philippine PET wash-and-pelletise plants. The same Karnot platform that cools your extruder and pelletiser melt loop heats your friction-wash and hot-wash tanks — one electricity bill, no diesel/LPG boiler, financed by the bank, paid for out of the saving. The heat the pelletiser throws off today is the heat your wash line needs.
The pelletiser throws off the heat. The wash tanks buy it back.
Every wash-and-pelletise line runs two opposing thermal jobs at the same time: the extruder and pelletiser melt the flake at 230 °C and the melt-cooling loop must reject that heat continuously, while the friction-wash and hot-wash tanks want 60–90 °C all shift long. Today those two jobs run on two separate bills — Meralco to throw the melt heat into a cooling tower, the diesel man to buy the same heat back.
Wash-water temperature IS your flake quality — and your old chiller is the weak link
Friction wash and hot-wash caustic loops must hold 60–90 °C to lift glue, labels and oils off the PET and hit food-grade flake spec. Most PH recyclers run an ageing R404A melt-cooling chiller at COP ~2.8 with an F-gas phasedown clock on the asset register and service prices rising every year. Karnot iCOOL CO₂ holds the same melt-cooling duty at COP 4.2 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory validated) — 40% less electricity on the cold side, and the heat it removes is the heat your wash tanks need.
The diesel/LPG boiler is your biggest controllable cost — and it's optional
Friction wash, hot-wash caustic loops (60–90 °C) and flake drying burn roughly ₱1.5M of diesel/LPG a year on a typical PET line. But the heat your extruder and pelletiser give up, captured at the iCOOL CO₂ gas cooler at 75–90 °C, covers the friction-wash and hot-wash load. Top it up with iHEAT R290 and the boiler is retired, not replaced. No flame, no flue, no insurance loading.
Cool the melt. Bank the heat. Heat the wash.
A heat pump moves heat rather than creating it. When iCOOL cools your extruder and pelletiser melt loop, the heat removed is delivered to the wash side at 75–90 °C — exactly what the friction-wash and hot-wash tanks need. Your extruder, pelletiser and wash tanks stay — we replace the utilities around the line, not the line.
iCOOL CO₂
Extruder and pelletiser melt cooling, die-face and water ring at COP 4.2. The gas cooler delivers 75–90 °C hot water from the same compression cycle. A1 safety class — fit for food-grade flake.
iHEAT R290
Friction-wash and hot-wash duty. Drop-in replacement for the diesel/LPG boiler. Outdoor install, sealed 1.4 kg charge, EN 378 compliant — no boiler room, no flame on site.
iSTOR PCM
Thermal battery on both sides. Hot: pelletiser heat banked for the wash tanks. Cold: the melt cooling rides through a PH brownout with zero compressor load. The line keeps running through the outage.
iSAVE + iVOLT
iSAVE meters every duty — monthly IPMVP Option B report to your accountant and your lender. iVOLT zero-export solar on the plant roof cuts the remaining grid draw a further 30–50%.
A PET wash-and-pelletise line. A real number per tonne.
Modelled on a Philippine PET bottle-to-flake/pellet wash-and-pelletise line — friction wash and hot-wash caustic loops, flake drying, continuous extruder and pelletiser melt cooling. Your line might run at half this throughput (divide) or double it (multiply) — the per-tonne economics hold.
| Annual figure · PET wash-and-pelletise line | Today · boiler + old chiller | Karnot platform | You stop paying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process heat (friction wash + hot wash + drying) | diesel/LPG hot water | 0 · recovered pelletiser heat | ₱1.5M/yr |
| Pelletiser / extruder cooling | COP 2.8 · R404A | COP 4.2 · CO₂ GWP 1 | ₱900K/yr |
| Total heat + cooling bill | ~₱2.4M/yr | ~₱0.9M/yr | −63% / ~₱1.5M |
| Scope 1 + refrigerant exposure | ~45 tCO₂e + GWP 3,922 | GWP 1 & 3 · natural | ~55 tCO₂e/yr |
| Total investment (VAT-inc) | (already paid) | ~₱2.4M | 1.6 yr cash payback |
The cash flow. Plain and dull.
CAPEX of ~₱2.4M, financed under a green loan at ~7.5% p.a. over 7 years. The monthly saving (~₱125K) covers the monthly loan payment (~₱38K) more than three times over. Net cash in pocket from day one.
We don't guess the saving. We calculate your thermodynamic minimum.
Pinch analysis maps every hot stream in your plant (melt that must cool, pelletiser heat that must leave) against every cold stream (friction-wash and hot-wash water that must heat) and computes the three numbers that define your energy performance. A recycling line is the textbook case — the analysis practically writes itself.
The absolute least boiler energy your plant needs after maximum heat recovery. If your boiler burns more than this — and in every recycling line we have surveyed, it does — the difference is pure waste.
The absolute least chiller energy required after recovery. Everything your melt-cooling chiller removes above this is pelletiser heat you paid to make and then paid again to throw away.
The recycling-line bottleneck temperature. Above it: heat deficit. Below it: heat surplus. A heat pump is the only utility that moves surplus heat from below the pinch to the deficit above it — which is why the saving is 63%, not 15%.
New to pinch analysis? We wrote the plain-English guide — no jargon, no PhD required, with worked composite curves explained in pictures. Then commission a Level 1 Energy Survey (₱90K, refunded in full on install) and we run the pinch study on your actual production log.
You pay nothing up front. The bank does.
Three Philippine banks run green-loan programmes built for exactly this kind of project. The monthly saving covers the loan payment more than three times over. Net cash flow goes up from day one.
These are loans, not grants. Plus BOI Pioneer Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285 — energy-efficient manufacturing qualifies. Karnot files the loan, the BOI registration, the building permits and the monthly IPMVP M&V report your lender wants to see as part of project scope. You sign at the bank window, not before.
Download the Plastic Recycling Application Brief
A 4-page application brief and a 10-slide deck — both ready to share with your plant manager, your accountant or your board.
4-Page Application Brief
A4 portrait PDF · print-ready. Hero, cash strip, problem + architecture, four products, the per-tonne numbers table, pinch analysis, bank finance, founder quote.
10-Slide Sales Deck
16:9 landscape PDF. The complete presentation — problem, architecture, four boxes, the bill, cash flow, bank finance, pinch analysis, refrigerant trilemma, next steps.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much can a Philippine plastic recycling plant save?
A modelled Philippine PET wash-and-pelletise line saves approximately ₱1.5M per year — a 63% reduction in the combined heating and cooling energy bill. Today's setup (diesel/LPG boiler ~₱1.5M/yr for friction wash, hot wash and flake drying + melt-cooling chiller electricity and mains-water cooling ~₱900K/yr) costs about ₱2.4M/yr; the Karnot integrated platform delivers the same duties for about ₱0.9M/yr of electricity. With a 7-year green loan at ~7.5% p.a., the monthly saving (~₱125K) exceeds the loan payment (~₱38K), leaving roughly ₱85,000 net cash per month from day one. Lines at half or double this throughput scale proportionally.
How can the same machine cool the melt and heat the wash water?
A heat pump moves heat rather than creating it. When Karnot iCOOL CO₂ cools the extruder and pelletiser melt loop and holds the die-face and water ring steady, the heat removed is rejected at the CO₂ gas cooler at 75–90 °C — exactly the temperature the friction-wash and hot-wash caustic tanks need. Today that heat goes into a cooling tower (wasting mains water) while a diesel or LPG boiler buys the same energy back. The Karnot platform transfers it across instead: cool the melt, bank the heat, heat the wash. Your extruder, pelletiser and wash tanks stay — we replace the utilities around the line, not the line itself.
Can a heat pump reach the temperatures my wash line needs?
The iCOOL CO₂ gas cooler delivers 75–90 °C hot water and the iHEAT R290 cascade delivers 60–85 °C at COP 4.0+ in Philippine ambient — covering the hot-wash caustic loops (60–90 °C strip of glue, labels and oils), the friction-wash water and the warm air for flake drying, which together are the bulk of the line's thermal demand. The melt itself leaves the extruder at around 230 °C, but that is heat you are rejecting, not heat you need to make — the pelletiser cooling loop is the source the heat pump draws from. The boiler retires; the combustion goes with it.
What is pinch analysis and why does it matter for my recycling line?
Pinch analysis maps every hot stream (melt that must cool, pelletiser heat that must leave) against every cold stream (friction-wash and hot-wash water that must heat) and computes QHmin and QCmin — the absolute minimum heating and cooling your process needs after maximum heat recovery. Everything above that minimum is waste. In a recycling line the pinch point sits around 35 °C, and a heat pump is the only utility that can move surplus heat from below the pinch to the deficit above it — which is why savings reach 63% rather than the 10–15% a heat-exchanger-only retrofit delivers. Start with the plain-English pinch guide, then commission a Level 1 Energy Survey (₱90K, refunded on install) and we run the pinch study on your actual production log.
Is CO₂ refrigerant safe for a recycling plant?
Yes — CO₂ (R744) is an A1 safety class refrigerant: non-toxic, non-flammable and food-safe — fitting for a plant turning bottles back into food-grade flake. GWP of 1 with no F-gas phasedown exposure. Compare the legacy options: R404A and R134a melt-cooling chillers have GWP up to 3,922 with quota-driven service prices rising every year, and industrial ammonia is efficient but toxic — exclusion zones, specialist technicians, insurance loadings. Karnot iHEAT R290 (propane) sits outdoors with a sealed 1.4 kg charge under EN 378. Nothing on the asset register carries a phasedown date or an exclusion zone.
What happens to my line during a brownout?
The iSTOR PCM thermal battery carries the melt-cooling loop through 8–12 hours of grid outage on stored cooling alone — no compressor, no generator. Chilled water holds the die-face and water-ring cooling steady so the pelletiser keeps running rather than tripping on high melt temperature. The same battery banks recovered pelletiser heat so the hot-wash tanks stay at temperature: the heat pump charges the hot buffer, the wash line draws on demand.
Does this work for other plastics besides PET?
Yes — the same simultaneous heat-and-cool logic applies to any wash-and-pelletise stream. HDPE and PP rigid and film recycling run friction wash and hot-wash caustic loops at similar 60–90 °C and reject continuous melt-cooling heat at the extruder and pelletiser, so the pinch case is the same: the cooling duty and the heating duty run at the same time. We size on your polymer mix, wash chemistry and pelletiser throughput; the chill-the-melt, bank-the-heat principle does not change.
What financing and incentives are available?
Three Philippine banks run green-loan programmes that fit recycling-plant CAPEX: DBP SEFP (~6.5–8% p.a., 70–80% LTV, industrial energy-efficiency priority), LandBank SEILP (~7% p.a., strong for regional and circular-economy recyclers), and BPI SDF (~1–1.5% below standard SME rates). Most installs also qualify for BOI Pioneer status and an Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285 as energy-efficient manufacturing. Karnot files the loan application, the BOI registration, the building permits and the monthly IPMVP M&V report your lender wants — as part of project scope.
Want the numbers for your recycling plant?
Send us your annual throughput (tonnes), 12 months of diesel/LPG + electricity bills and your wash + pelletise schedule. We come back with a sized system, your QHmin and QCmin, projected saving, payback — and the bank application ready to sign.