Interview to Ulrich Bucher, Extrutec

Your company participates in METEF. Can you tell us why you chose to be present?

One of the main reasons for extrutec to participate at Metef 2025 is, that we as one of the world market leaders in the field of heat transfer technology, (Colloquially better known as heating and cooling), want to present the latest developments with regard to efficient billet heating and successful profile cooling of even the most difficult profile shapes to a wider audience, and in detail especially to the Italian extrusion market.

What innovations will you present at the fair? What kind of benefits do they bring to operators in the sector?

Green – the new heat for extrusion: Focusing on green technologies – “Think Hybrid”

Ever since the company was founded, extrutec has focused on the continuous improvement and further development of its equipment. Improving consumption in particular is an essential part of the technology development.

Under the motto: “Green – the new heat for extrusion”, technologies are bundled that enable heating solely with electricity and thus without fossil fuels. The goal of the development efforts is to make existing technologies more energy-efficient and to develop new equipment types and combinations.

Therefore, the main innovation will be the market implementation of the newly developed EHKO – heating furnace (electrically heated high-speed convection) with successful realisation of the first orders at our customers sites.

This type of furnace achieves efficiencies of 87% with purely electric-based heating what is an unprecedented efficiency in the aluminium extrusion industry. With integration of an external HTU (Heat Transfer Unit) using the waste energy of e.g. hydraulic pump systems of existing extrusion presses in combination with a heat pump, unbeatable thermal efficiencies of up to 96% will be reached.

In order to be able to react most flexible on required temperature changes from the press, the integration of an induction module in patented “In-Line” technology to realise a high-end Hybrid-Solution is recommended.

Beside of that the extrutec high performance profile cooling unit will be in the center of our trade fair presence at Metef 2025. Here especially the advantages of our patented α-flex cooling system will be explained in detail.
Finally, this technology can lead to enormous savings as high-energy consuming air-cooling and water pump systems might not be required anymore in future.

Advantages they bring to operators in the sector:

• Emission free billet heating: Unbeatable low energy consumption (and thus reduced emissions) by billet heating solely in our new EHKO with HTU. If this is realised with a mix of green energy from e.g. solar panels or hydro power plants, no fossil fuels are in use.
• Hybrid billet heating: Flexible and energy saving billet heating by just using green electricity with our patented hybrid solutions.
• Profile Cooling: Highly efficient and most flexible cooling of even advanced profiles by means of the extrutec patented α-flex cooling system instead of high speed air-cooling or hign pressure water cooling

What is your message of invitation for aluminum professionals to visit your booth at METEF?

Come and visit us in Hall 31 at our booth B34. We think Green – We think Hybrid – We are extrutec

Ulrich Bucher
Head of Sales