3-Component Allrounder Cube: Compact and Efficient Cube-Mould Technology
At the K 2022 trade fair, a particularly innovative application in terms of cube-mould technology can be seen at Arburg stand 13A13, where an automated three-component Allrounder Cube 1800 will be producing a functional component from PP, TPE and POM using an 8+8+8-cavity cube mould from partner Foboha. The finished moulded part is produced directly in the mould thanks to assembly injection moulding. Mould filling, cooling, part removal by a six-axis robot and other assembly steps including capping in the gripper take place synchronously.
The K exhibit is a current customer project and a successful example of how maximum output can be achieved in a minimal footprint.
Compact cube, new turning technology
The compact Allrounder Cube 1800 three-component cube machine with a clamping force of 1,800 kN is particularly well suited to smaller cavity numbers. The exhibit works with three injection units in sizes 70, 170 and 70. At its heart is a compact cube from partner company Foboha, which is easily accessible from above. The 8+8+8-cavity tool with two index platens on each side of the cube features the new CITI technology. CITI stands for „Cube with Integrated Turning Inserts“, an index technology patented by Foboha.
Eight functional components can each be produced with the 8+8+8 cavity cube mould in a cycle time of around 9.5 seconds. First, a frame made of PP is injected on the moving nozzle side. The cube rotates 90 degrees, then the pre-moulded parts are turned 180 degrees by the CITI technology and, after another 90-degree cube rotation, a TPE seal is applied on both sides and a functional element made of POM is moulded on.
Final assembly directly in the gripper
A six-axis robot integrated in the control system removes all eight parts from the mould at the same time. Final assembly takes place directly in a gripper from Arburg’s partner Kiki in a five-step process that takes just four seconds, with no effect on the cycle time. The ready-to-use products are finally deposited on a conveyor belt.
Innovative cube-mould technology from Arburg
Depending on the circumstances, one Allrounder Cube can replace several conventional injection moulding machines and reduce the overall footprint by up to 75%. Innovative cube-mould technology significantly reduces cycle time. In addition to efficient high-volume production in the packaging and medical technology industries, compact cube machines such as the Allrounder Cube 1800 are also increasingly being used for the production of technical parts and smaller quantities.
Bayfol HX is used in Sony’s prototype 360-degree holographic display
The Bayfol HX photopolymer film of Covestro helps the R&D of Sony Group Corporation to realize the prototype of a transparent display. This display delivers novel and fascinating visual experiences, as the images holographically generated within it appear to float freely in a transparent cylindrical column. Viewers can walk around the 360-degree display and look at the displayed image from all angles. Since the holographically evoked image is very bright – but the display is transparent at the same time – the image and background merge almost seamlessly. In the spirit of an augmented reality (AR) system, this transparent 360° holographic display expands reality. Because whatever is displayed in it seems to actually be there for the observer. Covestro is presenting this application of Bayfol HX at the K 2022 plastics trade fair, which will be held in Düsseldorf from October 19 to 26.
Bayfol HX consists of a transparent film as a substrate and a photoreactive layer that is optimized for the specific customer requirements. Bayfol HX gives designers the greatest possible design freedom. For example, it is flexible enough to be bent – as in the Sony application – so that it can completely enclose a cylinder. It has tailor-made optical properties to produce high-quality holographic images. Both the very high transparency of the photopolymer film and the image brightness it enables were key factors in Sony’s decision to use Bayfol HX for its development project.
“We spent a long time looking for the right material to realize our idea,” said Sony’s Yutaka Imai. The R&D General manager continues, “The project showed that Bayfol HX has excellent performance for AR applications.” It is imaginable that the prototype display technology will be used, for example, in museum showrooms and corporate presentation rooms – or in the home, for example, to accompany music with 360-degree videos.
“We are pleased that digital image information can now be presented floating in space rather than just presented in a frame, as it were, thanks to Bayfol HX and Sony’s innovative screen concept. In addition to automotive head-up displays (HUD) and head-mounted displays (HMD), this is another extremely promising AR application for our holographic films,” says Yuen-Ling Lok, Head of Commercial Operations Holographic Lightguiding at Covestro.
“CMF Has an Opportunity to Really Understand All Those Different Consumers.”
Interview with Falza Khanani, Global Director of Color, Material and Finish design and Incubations, Dell
Chris Lefteri: Hello Falza. Thanks for joining me. So, a simple question to get us started. Tell me about your current role and what you do?
Falza Khanani: Sure, I’m the global director of color, material and finish design and incubations at Dell. The CMF team works across the entire portfolio of products at Dell, developing strategies, applying CMF design , and innovating new materials for the future. it’s tip-to-tail in terms of anything to do with a material’s surface. My job is the CMF portion of any product design at Dell.
Chris Lefteri: And what was your background before?
Falza Khanani: I’m originally an industrial designer. I worked in the footwear industry for many years, first as a designer, then focusing on material and color direction, and then I started to be curious about CMF and other product industries. I’ve worked in mobile phones, the trucking industry (where I developed CMF for interiors and exteriors), footwear, apparel.
Chris Lefteri: That’s quite a range of different industries you’ve worked for! What do you feel is the connection between them all, and how that applies to Dell and its products?
Falza Khanani.
Falza Khanani: I moved around because of CMF. My curiosity just kept growing because CMF is so integrated into design, but also the process of collaboration is different across industries. I don’t think consumers or users or people that buy things think about CMF separate from the actual product. Yet it’s the one thing that people interact with: it’s a visual interaction, a tactile interaction, it’s how you’re intersecting with the actual product in very tangible ways. And so if you step back a bit and think about human perception, and emotions, and what causes desire, CMF has an opportunity to really understand all those different people, different consumers, different desires and either bring them to a new place with a new experience, or build on what they love and keep delivering that.
Dell has so many different types of products with different materials in their portfolio. It’s an interesting design challenge: you can start to design these CMF interactions, or build on the Dell customer base so that the customers are getting to know Dell for the subtleties that cause emotional reactions, like how the product feels, or the technical aspects which might not even be visible – like making products more carbon neutral because of the materials being chosen on the inside.
There’s so much to build on in terms of human connection with the actual tech products and it goes beyond just the performance and quality they deliver. So it’s the ability to think about humans, and their interaction with the product, whether it’s through technology, or surface, or how a color inspires or makes you feel. It’s an interesting design problem to keep approaching in different ways, yes.
Chris Lefteri: And it’s different for each of your product categories? Different values?
Falza Khanani: Exactly. We have different brands so they have different qualities that consumers connect to. Even thinking about products that are supposed to be very affordable and accessible, or others that should enable productivity. I think that’s where CMF design often gets overlooked: you can always do a lot with very little, and there’s also things you don’t notice that have been intentionally considered. There is always a different design and innovation problem to solve. Instead of “Oh, I can’t use this material or color”, it’s like: “How can I make the minimal choices to make just as interesting an experience?” Choices the designers make significantly change the perception and experience of the final design.
Chris Lefteri: And can you give me an example of some of those experiences or qualities?
Falza Khanani: For example, we have the new XPS 13 series of notebooks; they are a high performance, minimal design product, mostly made of low carbon aluminium, meaning the material are produced using hydro power. This means it has a different story in terms of being a material that appeals to people when they’re buying a top tier device: it’s like an additional kind of value. There’s an emotional value that connects to a rational purpose of sustainability. On the same topic of materials and sustainability, we have some products that are exclusively moulded plastic, with a high amount of recycled content; that product has a different experience and accessibility, yet the details of tactility and materials is equally thoughtful.
Chris Lefteri: What do you mean by ‘exclusively moulded plastic’?
Falza Khanani: We have the education focused 3000 series, that’s made exclusively of plastic. So in the past, if you had a plastic object of any product category you usually wanted to cover it. Plastic seemed really undesirable and cheap, it didn’t have any kind of value. You tried to paint it with metallic paint or you put a film on it that made it look like something else. We’re now actually choosing to explore and talk about the honesty of this material. We’re thinking things like: what else can we do to the surface so that this is an elevated material experience, both for the consumer and for manufacturing?
So the XPS and the 3000 series are wildly different in terms of pricing, as well as from a functioning perspective – we’re talking opposite ends of the product spectrum – but they can still both be equally thoughtfully designed. You need to consider the end user experience and then integrate that with the material choices. A low-end product or a lower price doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a lower-end experience on the surface.
Dell.
Chris Lefteri: Is there a particular product and a detail on that product that you want to highlight?
Falza Khanani: We have the Latitude 3000. The Latitude is our commercial portfolio and then the 3000 model is generally used in a pretty high-volume way across the globe for things like education. So just because it’s going to be used by students and banged around and reused again and again, and made in the millions, that doesn’t mean it needs to be basic and unconsidered. So with the Latitude 3000 we added a little speckle to the resin, we got rid of paint, we developed a micro texture to give the surface a better quality, so it doesn’t look so flat, it has a bit more dimension, it has tactility – a tiny bit of expression. And then the material itself has a pretty high PCR content (and uses a bio-based TPU) so at the same time we’re building some sustainability into it as well. So that’s a pretty thoughtful product that would have been considered “low end, high volume” in the past. I just think those names and categories aren’t relevant anymore. It’s more about the different experience that a consumer is using the product for, and therefore we’re designing a different CMF experience and function.
Chris Lefteri: You talked about experience of plastics. How do you think the experience, and perception, of plastics has changed from when you were first working in a different industry to where it is now? Your perception, I mean.
Falza Khanani: When I first started working in design, I was in the footwear industry and I was sourcing a lot of materials. The best materials were always from Europe. They were always something like a leather, or a natural fibre, or linen, or silk. Then plastics, or synthetic materials, started to find their way, their own place. They got their own stereotype, like being “an athletic material”, for example, for footwear, or “it’s very cheap and basic” (when you think about those plastic cups and dishes). Basically, it was a throwaway material that had durability. And then there was always the perception that plastics came from Asian manufacturing, and maybe back then it wasn’t so much about original ideas, they were really just about “copying” materials. Making a fake version of soap, for example. I think plastic was always known as the “fake material”, right?
If you come to the present moment in time, and I think plastics are being used in so many different product applications, there are so many different types of plastics. You can build a plastic completely from recycled material, you can weave textiles, make recycled bottles or fibre. So there’s now the “reuse” case. There’s also changing the perception from “fake material” to a material that has its own authentic honesty of texture, or whether it’s a gloss… And then there’s color, of course. When plastic first came out, before I was born, probably before you were born!, when it was like “fantastic plastic”, it was basically Bakelite products that were all about color and shape and moulding things into anything, as opposed to the handmade product. So it started out as an amazing, cool material, for high-end jewellery and dishware. But then it became so prolific and simplified – and affordable! – so it lost its value.
There’s now so much innovation around, plastic is just a whole different thing, you can’t even say one material is plastic. There are so many performance functionalities, so many different activities, the ability to incorporate color or visual noise in the actual resin (versus adding something topical to cover it). I’m thinking about different moulding processes, in terms of improving the surface, or how you can create a blended look using different colors: I’m thinking about, for example, a marble effect, how you design your injection moulding tool or add biobased materials for a textural or visual story.
So plastic has really just moved into a whole different space of sub-categories, with its own really high-end tier too.
Chris Lefteri: Let’s talk briefly about sustainability without going into too much depth here. Dell has a record of doing some really important projects around reclaimed ocean waste, packaging and recycled carbon fibre. How do you even begin to break that discussion down into a manageable chunk when you’re looking at the hardware? Do you say, “this time we really want to focus on circular materials, circular plastics”, or “this time we want to focus on longevity”? Do you break it down in those terms?
Falza Khanani: The way I approach sustainability – and we do have a sustainability team of engineers in the design team – is that it depends on the body of work or the project: you have to consider the most important thing about that particular product and then choose its path of sustainability. The key question is: is this going to be lowering the carbon footprint or this is about creating something with recycled materials? So, our Concept Luna, for example, was about longevity, service, disassembly. You can’t really put just one sustainable parameter across so many different products and product experiences. You have to think: what’s the biggest impact you can make with each product or product category? If it’s all moulded plastic, for example, then looking at your PCR content is really important if the product is super heavy. You start to look at the material and design choices: can we make this lighter so that when you ship it, it really lowers the carbon footprint (weight being such a big factor in terms of increasing carbon footprint when you ship things)?
We all have different approaches to sustainability. So it’s really about looking holistically at the different ways you’re creating the product, right? The consumer desire, the business case, the function, the volume, is it a big thing?, is it a small thing? It’s a whole different opportunity of thinking about design very differently.
Take power usage, that’s a really big thing. If we create servers, the fact is servers are mostly made of steel and most steel is already recycled throughout the globe. So it’s really about energy usage. Because a large datacenter full of servers is obviously going to use a lot of energy, and it’s going to be there for a really long time, so the materials have to endure longevity. But it’s also going to use a lot of power. So that would be a different approach. We approach it differently each time.
Chris Lefteri: I’d like to finish on a simple question: do you have a plastic product you most admire? It could be something you worked on personally, or it could be something that you think was just a fantastic piece of design in plastic.
Falza Khanani: I actually collect vintage Bakelite bracelets and brooches. I’m probably paying way too much for them when I find them online! You never think “Oh, I’m gonna wear plastic” but it’s really interesting what they were using this material to design with. Some are like intricate insect bugs that are brooches, others are trying to mimic things like wood and tortoiseshell, with a rough design. I also love stretchy clothes – and of course vintage ’50s stuff – when everything was plastic: it was polyester and vibrant colors, the playful future of everything synthetic!
Chris Lefteri: It was very celebratory, right? It’s interesting, you talk about the jewellery, I take from what you said that it was about replicating something else – i.e. plastic trying to look like wood or another natural material. And then in the ’60s, it became much more of a celebration of its own material?
Falza Khanani: Yeah, I mean the Bakelite dishes. They’re really beautiful because you have different wall thicknesses, and then there are some very geometric shapes. In the past, in the way the products were manufactured, there were limitations to form and shape and edge and radius, and I think that’s what you see in a lot of that early “fantastic plastic” design. You had mid-century design, which was interesting, right?, with these modern new shapes of things, and I think those were influenced a lot by what you could do with manufacturing, particularly plastic.
Machine Communication: OPC UA as The Linguistic Basis
Interview with Thorsten Kühmann, Managing Director Plastics and Rubber Machinery, VDMA e.V.
Communication is key, and this also applies to machines, since the ability of machines to communicate has economic advantages. However, this first requires a common linguistic basis, because then the machines can be used particularly efficiently. Thorsten Kühmann from the German Engineering Federation VDMA explains in an interview what OPC UA means in the context of M2M communication and why it is the future of production.
Mr. Kühmann, what is OPC UA?
Thorsten Kühmann.
Thorsten Kühmann: OPC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture) is the global language of production. Simply put, it is about machines being able to communicate with each other in the same language. Only this enables machine-to-machine communication across manufacturers and internationally.
Why is OPC UA indispensable for the plastics industry in the future?
Kühmann: It is indispensable because the production language creates a decisive prerequisite for being able to offer intelligent machine systems. Intelligence is created by algorithms that can be generated from a large amount of data. The basic prerequisite for this is that data is collected reliably along the process chain. This requires a reliable, standardized data flow, and that is exactly what the OPC UA-based production language is designed to deliver.
What can the technology already do today? Where does the industry still want to take it?
Kühmann: OPC UA provides the technical framework for the new language; it is, so to speak, the grammar of a new language. Within the industry, we are working internationally on the definition of interfaces for the respective application, the so-called specifications. This is then comparable to the words of a language. In the area of injection molding, extrusion and peripherals, we have already made good progress.
To what extent will this topic also be present at K 2022?
Kühmann: It will be present through a variety of use cases. Visitors will be sent on the OPC UA journey with their smartphones and will be able to read out defined data from around 70 machines exhibited at K. In the VDMA Dome, we will also install a control panel with which visitors can reach all connected machines. This will give them an impression of cross-manufacturer machine-to-machine communication.
Are there exhibitors who are already successfully using OPC UA?
VDMA e.V.
Kühmann: At K alone, there are more than 40 exhibiting companies from Europe, Japan, China and Canada showing the applications on site!
What experience reports do you get from these users?
Kühmann: Experience shows that customers are increasingly interested because networking on the store floor offers direct benefits: Production becomes transparent from day 1 and thus can be controlled incorruptibly and reliably. Especially in the current climate, with high energy and material costs, processes must be optimized along the entire chain. For example, it simply makes no sense to preheat material continuously when it is perfectly sufficient to do so on demand. In addition, there are requirements for the use of recyclates and the CO2 balance. The processes can only be precisely controlled and made transparent through digitization.
What is missing for OPC UA to be fully functional?
Kühmann: The data flow itself works with OPC UA; now many specifications still have to be created to connect all machine systems!
The next crucial step will then be data collection and processing beyond the store floor. So it’s all about interoperability between companies. This is necessary to create intelligent and self-controlling machine systems. In addition to the technical prerequisites, the trust of customers plays a decisive role here. Only when they are willing to supply data on a large scale, smart services can be created via algorithms. This can then lead to self-learning and self-operating machines. In times of a shortage of skilled workers and high costs for energy and materials, these are exactly the right answers. Initial considerations are moving in the direction of a federal structure for data collection with governance created by the industry. At this point, the VDMA is in exchange with the federal government under the keyword Manufacturing-X!
Coperion Presents Complete Plastics Recycling Solutions at K 2022 Making the Plastics Economy Even More Circular
Complete systems for industrial-scale plastics recycling from a single source – the recently completed merger between Coperion and machine manufacturer Herbold Meckesheim makes it possible. Coperion, technology leader in extrusion and compounding, bulk material handling and feeding systems, brings its own expertise in the field of recycling together with that of Herbold Meckesheim, specialist in the mechanical recycling of plastic and plastic waste, forming a new Recycling Business Unit. This new Business Unit makes innovative process solutions possible that represent a new benchmark in the efforts towards a circular economy in the plastics industry. Coperion is providing a first look at its integrated recycling solutions at K 2022 (19-26 October 2022, Dusseldorf) at its booth 14/B19, at its Recycling Pavilion in the open-air fairgrounds (CE09), and at Herbold Meckesheim’s booth 9/B34.
The newly created Recycling Business Unit is able to offer modular system and plant solutions that combine the complementary technologies of Coperion and Herbold Meckesheim to benefit customers. From mechanical processing – shredding, washing, separating, drying and agglomerating of plastics – to bulk material handling as well as feeding and extrusion all the way to compounding and pelletizing, the systems that both companies have developed together cover the entire process chain for reclaiming plastics. Moreover, the plastics industry will profit from this cumulative expertise thanks to their combined global sales and service network.
Experience PET Recycling Live
PET recycling is one example that illustrates how Coperion will be able to implement a complete system for plastics recycling in the future. As the plastics industry makes advances towards a circular economy, PET plays an ever more important role due to its increasing use in disposable and reusable bottles and its recovery through deposit systems, along with other factors. This material possesses outstanding recycling properties, regardless of whether it is to be recycled in bottle-to-bottle, bottle-to-film/sheet, or bottle-to-fiber processes, or whether it comes from other product streams.
Complete PET recycling solutions from Coperion offer throughput performance of up to ten tons per hour. The quality of PET recyclate manufactured using Coperion recycling technology and decontaminated in an SSP (Solid State Polycondensation) reactor is so high that it is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for direct contact with food.
One unique feature is that virgin material and various recyclates – such as regrind, agglomerates, or flakes – can be processed together, even if they exhibit different IV (Intrinsic Viscosity) values. Compared to conventional PET recycling procedures, Coperion’s solutions save on operation and energy costs and create less logistic efforts. Visitors to K can see and experience key components of this process at the Recycling Pavilion CE09/open-air fairgrounds and at Herbold Meckesheim’s booth 9/B34.
SML 60/100 SB 2 Granulator
This is a granulator used for crushing PET bottles and is suitable for wet operation. One unique feature that it offers is horizontal force feeding using screw feeders. The granulator allows for space-saving installation and easy material feeding. Up to two tons of polyolefins or more than one ton of film per hour is processed.
T 2016 PA Mechanical Dryer
This mechanical dryer is suitable for various materials such as film, regrind, and mixed and rigid plastics. Thanks to its optimized design and the position of the exchangeable, wear-resistant paddles, it achieves up to 50% higher drying performance than its
HV 70 Plastcompactor
The high-performance HV 70 Plastcompactor from Herbold Meckesheim processes material in continuous operation between one rotating and one fixed compactor disk,
each equipped with screwed-on and easily replaceable kneading bars. Since the material leaves the compactor zone within a fraction of a section, the thermal impact
upon the plastic is very low. The process is regulated using two parameters – the screw speed and the distance between the disks.
FLUIDLIFT Ecodry
The FLUIDLIFT ecodry process dries the regrind while it is being conveyed to the extruder. A flash dryer specially modified for recycling regrind removes the moisture remaining after the washing process. Moisture content is significantly reduced which optimizes the energy consumption of the downstream process and leads to improved end product quality.
Smart Weigh Belt (SWB) Feeder
For feeding flakes and fiber, a Smart Weigh Belt (SWB) feeder is used. This low-headroom gravimetric feeder can feed large quantities of bulk material into the extrusion process at high accuracy, even at low and variable bulk densities.
ZSK Twin Screw Extruder
Coperion ZSK twin screw extruders are the heart of the plastics recycling process. With their high-performance processing properties and high devolatilization performance, ZSK twin screw extruders are suited to energy-efficient recovery of plastics of all sorts. The ZSK extruder features high end product quality with gentle product handling, short residence time, intensive devolatilization, and outstanding dispersion with concurrently high throughput performance. In the Recycling Pavilion CE09/ open-air fairgrounds, Coperion is showing a ZSK 58 Mc 18 twin screw extruder with a 58 mm screw diameter together with a melt pump, screen pack changer, and an underwater pelletizer.
Product Discharge
Diverters, melt pumps, and screen pack changers follow the extrusion step. Depending upon whether pellets, fiber or film are to be manufactured from the PET, Coperion
provides water baths and underwater pelletizers, fiber spinning pumps or film stretching lines as part of their complete solutions.
New Recycling Innovation Center
The start of construction on the state-of-the-art Recycling Innovation Center in June of this year demonstrates the importance of the topic of plastics recycling for the market leader in extrusion and compounding technology. This new test center for recycling applications is located in immediate proximity to Coperion’s existing test center for bulk material handling at its Niederbiegen/Weingarten production facility in Germany. In the future, every major step of the plastics recycling process can be tested under production conditions and results can be examined by customers down to the smallest detail prior to making an investment.
Kisuma Gets Set to Tell the World About Landmark Sustainability and Product Innovation Progress at K 2022
Kisuma, the world’s largest producer of synthetic hydrotalcite, is gearing up to showcase an enormous array of sustainability progress and product diversification at the upcoming K 2022 show in Düsseldorf upstairs in Hall 7/A28.
The week-long event, starting on October 19, is the world’s leading business platform for the plastics and rubber industry. Stakeholders from around the world will converge to discuss key innovations, trends and challenges, as well as take the opportunity to forge new relationships and set out their visions for the future.
“Our organization has been historically low-profile about our contributions to customers, industries and most importantly to the global communities in which we service. Walking the walk is embedded in our culture. It’s our duty. We do it every day, pragmatically and proudly,” comments Marlus Ferretti, Chief Operating Officer at Kisuma Americas.
“The K 2022 has a particular significance to Kisuma, where many novel technologies and innovative solutions in polymer processing will be revealed. As per our legacy, we are not stepping out of character in big PR announcements. For that, we invite you to visit our booth at Hall 7 – level 1 – A28. Your time will be well spent.”
Kisuma’s K Show booth A28 in Hall 7.
This year marks the first time that Kisuma will have a booth at the K forum. It promises to be a bustling and busy week, the company arriving in Germany with many stories of progress to tell, as well as one or two hints at what lies ahead in the pipeline.
Making sustainable gains
One such story centers around decarbonizing heavy industry through carbon capture.
Since 2010, Kisuma has been heavily involved in a project led by a TNO-backed platform to develop Sorption Enhanced Water Gas Shift (SEWGS) technology – a solution which can be used for reactive separation of H2 and CO2 from syngas sources.
The company has been developing and producing the sorbent used in SEWGS, which is being successfully demonstrated on an industrial scale at Swedish Steel company SSAB. Its initial pilot project named STEPWISE, has been operating at a cyclic capacity of capturing 14 tons of CO2 per day, with plans to expand this by a multiple of five by 2024.
SEWGS will allow industries to eliminate hard-to-abate CO2 emissions and produce blue hydrogen at lower costs than previously possible. So far, we have demonstrated a 30% cost saving versus the next best carbon capture alternative, the highest purity of carbon capture (97.5%) and successful production of blue hydrogen at 400°C.
“Subject to further demonstrations at technology readiness level 8 across 2026 and 2027, we anticipate being ready to scale up to full commercialization by 2028,” added Tim Hauck, General Manager of Sales and Marketing at Kisuma. “We remain open to connecting with new partners on this project and welcome any conversations and enquiries at K 2022.”
In other developments, Kisuma is fulfilling a growing demand for tin stabilizer replacements with ALCAMIZER, an effective non-toxic acid scavenger for PVC that delivers numerous benefits such as reduced exposure to harmful substances, improved weathering and improved recyclability at end of service life.
Meanwhile, the company continues to make impressive energy efficiency strides across its production processes. Since beginning full operations in 1999, Kisuma has reduced CO2 emissions per ton of product by 55% – a period in which it has also doubled plant capacity.
Non-stop innovation
Additionally, the company has laid the foundations for future waves of innovation. It has just invested in a new, state-of-the-art R&D lab which will support the diversification of product portfolios based on market insights.
In June 2022, Kisuma opened a new facility dedicated to running pilot projects. Designed to bridge the gap between small laboratory testing and bringing products through to commercialization, it will be able to process small and medium batch sizes to validate and optimize product quality as production volumes scale.
On the product development side, DHT-4 is the trusted acid scavenger designed to replace conventional (often heavy metal based) scavengers in BOPE films.
“This is the strongest acid scavenger available on the market,” said Mathijs Preenen, Business Development Manager at Kisuma. “It irreversibly scavenges acidic catalyst residues through an innovative interlayer capturing process. “Replacing the traditional acid scavenger with DHT-4C allows converters and brand owners to achieve superior surface properties of their BOPE layer, leading to stronger metallization of the film and enhanced surface printing capability.”
Unveiling their newly upgraded R&D laboratory.
Crucially, DHT-4 also represents a fully recyclable solution, enabling customers to enhance their sustainability credentials by introducing completely circular BOPE film products to the market.
Looking ahead to a bright future
Kisuma will not be able to reveal everything at K 2022, however.
Some initiatives remain in development, including the company’s ongoing partnership building with academia and hospital networks to see how its products can be used in potential cancer treatments. Meanwhile, the company is lining up sizable investments into more plastic recycling solutions. Hauck commented: “We invite visitors to K 2022 to come and see us upstairs in Hall 7/A28 to learn more about our plans in these areas.
Kisuma’s K Show booth A28 in Hall 7.
“Whether it’s progress already made or exciting innovations and developments in the pipeline, Kisuma sees a lot of opportunities for the future. We will continue to serve our customers with reliable products that have stood the test of time, and we will also work on the next potentially game-changing solutions for worldwide problems. “We are in a solid position to move forward by investing in our brand, which includes finding the exceptional talent and resources we need to keep moving.”
Safely Packaged: Recyclable Reusable Transport Box Protects the Environment and Sensitive Goods
Interview with Prof. Rudolf Pfaendner, Head of the Plastics Research Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF
Packaging materials are often not very sustainable. This is partly because they are only designed for single-use transport. Researchers in the Fraunhofer LBF’s Plastics department have taken this fact as an opportunity to develop an alternative. With their recyclable reusable transport solution for sensitive goods, the climate, the environment and resources can be protected.
Prof. Rudolf Pfaendner, Head of the Plastics Research Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF.
Prof. Pfaendner, congratulations: together with the Darmstadt-based start-up Berges GbR, you and your colleagues have developed a fully recyclable reusable transport box. How did that come about?
Prof. Rudolf Pfaendner: Sustainability is one of our core topics at the Institute, namely sustainability in the entire development – from the design of the material to the design of the application to high-quality material recycling. The latter means developing a product whose first application is followed by a second, third and so on. The latter means developing a product whose first application is followed by a second, third, etc. application and which can be completely recycled at the end of its life cycle. The fact that it has become a transport box came about through an internal discussion about ordering goods on the internet. People who order on the internet still usually produce a lot of waste – for the yellow bin through cushioning material such as polystyrene flakes and bubble wrap, for the waste paper bin through the cardboard box and corrugated cardboard. This has to be better in view of the CO2 footprint, the need to save energy and the scarcity of raw materials, we thought to ourselves and started to develop a sustainable transport box with equally sustainable padding material.
How did you get there?
Pfaendner: For one thing, we were able to draw on our extensive experience with the entire range of plastics that exist today. On the other hand, there are properties that our product multiple transport box must necessarily achieve or have: mechanical properties, high durability and more. For example, we tested the durability of the outer shell of the box in the laboratory by accelerated ageing, the weather resistance by UV light tests. The air cushion, in turn, had to have a certain stability and also withstand stretching over several hundred percent. Many laboratory tests were necessary until we found the material of choice.
The innovative transport box with inflatable air cushion can be customised and fully recycled. Copyright: Fraunhofer LBF, Raapke
The development has been successful. What makes it stand out?
Pfaendner: Certainly above all that the transport box and the cushioning material inside are made of the same material. This is an ideal mono-material for recycling and the box can be recycled in one step. The material is HDPE – High Density Polyethylene, the commercially available standard material. However, the box and cushioning material could also be produced from PLA – the renewable raw material polylactic acid. But the industry is still closer to PE.
What was the biggest challenge?
The new transport box with inflatable inner cushion. Copyright: Fraunhofer LBF, Raapke
Pfaendner: The challenge was certainly to develop cushioning material in a sustainable form. We succeeded with the airbag. It is a re-inflatable air cushion that can be inflated to different degrees via a valve, for example with a compressed air gun, and then wraps itself protectively around the packaged goods. In this way, a wide variety of objects can be safely packed – from sensitive machine parts to works of art. Up to now, the latter have often been transported in boxes produced especially for one-time transport, which are also foamed. Not very environmentally friendly.
What is the next step in your development?
Pfaendner: The box already has utility model protection and a patent application. We have shown its technical possibilities and proved that it works. Now we are looking for a partner who will produce it in larger numbers and test it in practice. Logistics and shipping companies that pack things in different quantities and dimensions would be suitable. But what would probably be closest is someone who has to continuously move machine parts between company location A and company location B, for example.
And when the “end of life” of the transport boxes is approaching and they are no longer functional, do they then go into the yellow bin?
Pfaendner: Oh no, they are far too good for that! Ideally, their owners collect them until a few have been gathered, have them shredded as recyclate stream and make new boxes out of them. Properties such as durability may then have to be improved with additives. We know these and they can easily be added.
Economical, Material-Efficient Blown Film Technology for Reduced Thickness Thermoforming Films
K2022 will see Kuhne Anlagenbau GmbH for the first time exhibiting as a manufacturer of large-scale lines for producing simultaneously biaxially oriented thermoforming films using Triple Bubble technology. At a thickness of 80 to 120 µm, these films are only about half the thickness of conventional cast films used in this application, and there is no need to compromise on service characteristics either. The maximum achievable thermoforming ratio is 1:10. This means a reduction in material consumption and thus in the associated greenhouse gas emissions of some 50%. Thanks to optimized cooling rates, these large-scale lines can achieve throughputs of up to 2,000 kg/h or annual outputs of as high as over 15,000 tonnes per year, which means that they can match or even surpass the productivity and profitability of cast film lines. Inventory can also be reduced in downstream processing, while the distinctly lower energy consumption of thermoforming enables a further reduction in CO 2 footprint and very good machine processability is also ensured. For manufacturers and distributors, the reduced thickness of the films means lower extended producer responsibility (EPR) levies andassists compliance with the Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging (CEFLEX) sustainability guidelines drawn up by the flexible packaging value chain.
Typical applications for such multilayer films include shelf-life extending vacuum packaging for the transport and storage of large pieces of ham, meat or cheese. Generally based on PA, EVOH and PE, these films combine high transparency with good thermoforming characteristics and elevated puncture resistance. Kuhne Anlagenbau, which developed the Triple Bubble process in-house back in 1996, has perfected the system and can now offer processors access to the attractive combination of low film thicknesses with the high throughputs which can only be achieved with large-scale machinery. This means the economic advantages traditionally enjoyed by cast films over blown films in this area are a thing of the past.
Typical applications for thermoforming films produced using Kuhne’s Triple Bubble process include transport packaging for large pieces of meat or cheese. lena_zajchikova
The Triple Bubble technology for manufacturing biaxially oriented blown films is named after the serial arrangement of three bubbles. In the first, the film is rapidly cooled using cold water quench technology. Kuhne has further optimized this process for the large-scale plants, so enabling the efficiency-enhancing increased cooling rates which very effectively prevent crystallization processes as a prerequisite for uniform stretching in the following, second stage. The high level of orientation at the molecular level achieved in this second stage significantly improves the films’ mechanical and barrier properties. Thermal relaxation in the third bubble serves to set the desired thermoforming behavior.
Kuhne Triple Bubble lines currently enable the production of films with up to 17 layers at widths of up to 3,000 mm double flat (6,000 mm film width) and an output of as high as over 2,000 kg/h. The systems are suitable for processing any conventional polymers such as PE, PP, PET, PA, EVOH, COC, EVA, EMA, ionomers etc. Thermoforming formulations which, depending on the weight of the packaged goods, contain well below 10% PA and EVOH, also permit a dramatic reduction in thickness and ensure easy, high-performance processing. Monomaterial solutions based on PET, PA, polyolefins and further polymers are also possible.
Kuhne will be showing models of implemented large-scale lines at its K2022 booth (Hall 17 / A41), which will give visitors an opportunity to familiarize themselves with Triple Bubble technology. As Kuhne’s CEO, Jürgen Schiffmann, explains: “Working with us gives customers considerably more than just on-spec and on-schedule delivery and installation of the Triple Bubble line. Our service also includes application-specific film formulation and tuning of process parameters. In our experience, this means that processors can start commercial production immediately without protracted optimization.”
Capsules Growth is Slowing Down And Competition Intensifies in Aluminium
AMI has published its 4th authoritative report mapping the global Single Serve Capsules industry. The report aims to support the development of robust participation strategies by equipping industry players and investors with a comprehensive understanding of scale of potential for future development, growth dynamics per system, market drivers and competitive pressures.
Over 80 billion capsules were filled in 2022 globally, both aluminium and plastic formats. Single serve capsules are a dynamic market segment with a complex value chain. The changes in this industry are fast, and driven by growing sustainability pressures and end-of-life scenarios, brand positioning as well as organic consumption trends.
The context of 2020-2021 pandemic lockdowns boosted the demand for single serve capsules in Europe and North America. Both retail and online sales of capsules sharply increased, anecdotal industry feedback being 30-50% growth in lockdowns. Operationally, throughout the first 2 lockdowns filling was working at near capacity and in shifts to assure safety of personnel. Some SKUs were sold out, which was to do with prioritisation of lines and optimal operations to limit changeover times. The second half of 2021 and 2022 resembled more of a normal sales pattern, and the spikes in consumption had settled down. The growth is now largely slowing down.
Unlike previously, there was a significant volume increase for original capsules between 2020 and 2022. Nestlé has been managing its portfolio of products extremely well – increasing sales of Nespresso via the Starbucks brand, which was popular in conventional retail. Still, the share of compatible capsules is rising. The Nespresso compatibles include both private label (retailer own brand) and branded offering (L’Or, Café Royal, Dallmayr Capsa).
The compatibles’ need for differentiation resulted in capsule material and barrier spec adjustments, impacting positioning. To this end, L’Or was successfully relaunched in aluminium capsules in 2017. Given L’Or’s aluminium victory, post 2018 the market had gone through the process of dramatic transition from plastic to aluminium Nespresso compatibles.
The growth of aluminium was a result of both the organic growth of consumption of Nespresso and Nespresso compatible capsules buoyed by system rationalisation, but also by inter-material substitution trend away from high barrier plastics in particular. As previously experienced with plastic Nespresso compatibles, there is a current need for differentiation of aluminium compatibles. This can be delivered with aesthetics – not only a variety of lacquers, but also embossing, design features, pre-printed patterns, etc.
The aluminium opportunity had beckoned new entrants and the competition has intensified.
Borealis and Vibac Offer More Sustainable, Bopp-Based Film for Food Packaging
Biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film produced using circular Bornewables made from second eneration renewable feedstock
Vibac’s “V-Fresh” packaging film designed for easy sorting and mechanical recycling
EverMinds-inspired collaboration significantly reduces the carbon footprint of flexible food packaging
Borealis, one of the world’s leading providers of advanced and sustainable polyolefin solutions and a European frontrunner in polyolefins recycling, and the Vibac Group, one of the leading companies in specialised biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) applications, announce the development of new and more sustainable BOPP-based film for food applications. Vibac’s “V-Fresh” BOPP film is produced with a grade from the Bornewables portfolio of circular polyolefins derived entirely from waste and residue streams. Because it is designed for recycling (DfR), the packaging can be easily sorted in polypropylene (PP) waste streams for mechanical recycling, thus helping increase the recycling quotas of flexible packaging formats. As an example of co-operation in the spirit of EverMinds that
accelerates the move to plastics circularity, the V-Fresh film packaging will be on display at the Borealis K 2022 stand in October.
Joint development yields BOPP food packaging format with lower carbon footprint
Polypropylene (PP) is widely used in the flexible packaging industry thanks to its cost and resource efficiency. When used for food-safe packaging formats such as bags and pouches for e.g., salad, fresh products and cut vegetables, the protective properties of PP help extend the shelf life by retaining freshness and minimising unnecessary food waste. Film converters are also looking to improve the sustainability profile of their packaging film solutions.
To lower CO₂ emissions and help address the issue of climate change, converters can now rely on the grades in the Bornewables portfolio of circular polyolefins. Derived solely from waste and residue streams, Bornewables grades are drop-in solutions that offer the same performance properties as virgin PP, yet with a substantially lower carbon footprint. Converters can use the Bornewables on existing equipment without having to invest in new machinery. The newly developed, monomaterial BOPP film can be easily integrated into PP mechanical recycling streams, thus upping recycling quotas for flexible packaging formats.
“Together with Vibac, we have been able to develop yet another packaging solution that exemplifies our EverMinds ambition, which is advancing plastics circularity by way of innovation and value chain collaboration,” says Peter Voortmans, Borealis Global Commercial Director Consumer Products. “Offering high quality and cost-efficient alternatives to fossil-based feedstocks is what we mean by re-inventing essentials for more sustainable living.”
“The combination of our BOPP film expertise with the polyolefins and recycling know-how provided by Borealis enables us to satisfy consumer demand for more climate-friendly packaging,” says Alberto De Paoli, Vibac General Director. “At the same time, we can still deliver the safety, freshness, and top-notch organoleptic qualities shoppers have come to expect.”
K 2022 will take place from 19 to 26 October 2022 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
We invite you to “Innovate Collaborate Accelerate” together with us by visiting Borealis and Borouge in Hall 6 at Stand A43, where the new V-Fresh fresh salad pouch will be on display.
