SABIC® HDPE: Innovative ideas to meet evolving demands
Trends in the flexible packaging sector have lead to a desire to go thinner while maintaining specifications that protect goods and preserve aesthetics? SABIC's new HDPE grade SABIC® HDPE F4660 answers the demands of the marketplace by offering improved film stiffness, high solidity, and outstanding optics. Moreover, it blends well into PE grades, facilitating further product innovation.
Originally developed for multilayer blown film applications, but now also used for cast film, SABIC® HDPE F4660 increases rigidity and barrier properties in coextrusion or PE blends. It also provides processability when blended with either linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) or metallocene linear low-density polyethylene (mLLDPE).
Outstanding optical and mechanical properties
In high-clarity coextrusion film structures, SABIC® HDPE F4660 is added to the middle film layer to increase stiffness, and it is used as the main component of the outer layer to ensure optimum optical and mechanical properties. This is of particular benefit when downgauging in applications such as freezer, beverage, and lamination packaging films and bread bag films.
A similar application employs a paper-like treatment now frequently used to make high-quality brochures and stationery. Utilized purely for its exceptional visual attributes, this grade looks and feels like paper, but is actually made from plastic. Each sheet is paper thin, and therefore, is difficult to handle. With SABIC® HDPE F4660, as many as 12 layers can be added to enhance firmness.
Supporting sustainable solutions
The blending of HDPE into PE films is advantageous in conventional coextrusion or monolayer film extrusions to enhance barriers to invasive properties like water vapor. It also has the density and strength to increase stiffness when high transparency is not required. Since the launch of SABIC® HDPE F4660, there has been a 40% diminution in film thickness in diapers, and a significant decrease in tonnage used in this application.
Cutting back on the amount of material used in all of its applications is a challenge that SABIC embraces for a number of reasons. A reduction in waste not only leads to cost savings, but it is also in line with the organization's dedication to the ecological and sustainable use of materials. SABIC is constantly searching for leading-edge solutions to support customer growth in a responsible manner.
