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Multi-layer films find the winning combination

Innovation isn’t always in the materials – it’s also in how you use them. Converter machines today have higher flexibility in raw materials thanks to multi-layer extrusion, and SABIC’s LDPE/LLDPE team is creating solutions that help them find greater economic and sustainable value.

Over the last 30 years, packaging has evolved from using single layers of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) to increasingly complex combinations of materials in multiple layers. Today’s packaging films can be five or more layers, and these combinations achieve the end users’ desired properties—such as transparency or puncture resistance – while using materials more in the most efficient and economic manner.

So it’s no surprise that converters and their customers are increasingly interested in multi-layer solutions. In 2008 SABIC’s LDPE/LLDPE team began work to introduce such smart resin combinations to help customers minimize the amount of raw materials used and optimize performance on equipment they’ve already invested in. SABIC® LDPE and SABIC® LLDPE smart combinations have so far resulted in: 

  • cost savings
  • down gauging (using less material)
  • higher processing speed
  • lower energy consumption

 

 

Increasing interest in sustainability
The efficiencies of multi-layer films have considerable impact on an end customer’s sustainable practices, increasingly important to many. For example, down gauging has caught the attention of consumer product manufacturers because it helps them use packaging that’s greener and more sustainable. “You really need multi-layer capabilities if you’re serious about down gauging,” says Rolf Scherrenberg, Manager Material Development, Technology & Innovation.

But the advantages to multi-layer packaging can also be strictly economic. For example, combining materials also means that less material (and expense) is required, and it frees converters from reliance on a single source for specific materials, giving them greater flexibility in their material sourcing.

“There is always innovation going on, but we are convinced that it will not only be in enhancing new resins. Future innovation will be mostly realized by solutions based on the right combination of base resins with the latest development in extrusion technology,” adds Alberto Ronzani, Technical Marketing Engineer.

A new combination, a new perspective
Now that the multi-layer approach is in the implementation phase, multi-layer films are bringing greater product performance and a wider choice in possible raw materials to end-packaging markets such as compression packaging, hygienic packaging, lamination and shrink film.

For example, SABIC developed a beverage collation shrink film—such as that used to wrap six-packs of water bottles—based on five layers based of LDPE, LLDPE and HDPE. The resulting film offers the same puncture and tear resistance, shrink force and visual appearance of a three-layer film currently used by the industry, but it is 20% thinner and considerably less expensive. This has aroused the interest of many customers, including a major water producing company.
 
Changes in sales techniques
The LDPE/LLDPE team always understood the challenges facing manufacturers using their products, but bringing multi-layer solutions to market has shifted the focus.
“Traditionally we’ve sold one material at a time. Now we’re trying a different approach, where we propose a concept or kind of package, showing them that if you combine our grades in a specific way, you can achieve a specific cost savings or improvement in packaging speeds,” explains Ronzani.
“In the past, our collaboration with customers has often been asking them to run formulations that we define, in effect using them as a kind of lab testing facility,” he adds. “Our approach now is to look at their capabilities in film extrusion and to try to combine them with our grade portfolio in the most optimal way to maximize performances of the item produced and improve its cost/quality ratio.”