Conversion Technologies

Conversion Technologies
Plantic's strategy is for the material to be compatible with a broad range of standard commercial conversion technologies. This is a core requirement in order to have any realistic prospect of winning large customers. The packaging industry is well established but generally operating with only profit thin margins on the basis of large volume/high-speed throughput. Therefore all plastics need to be able to be processed on existing machinery with little or no modification to the equipment and process; but with a similar throughput. Currently, Plantic® can be readily converted on industry standard conversion equipment for thermoformed and injection moulded products. In addition, Plantic® has successfully trialed its barrier resin in co-extruded blow moulding equipment and injection stretch blow moulding machines. Plantic has also successfully trialed its flexible film formulations on cast and blown film conversion equipment.

Forming of Plantic® trays takes place on standard pressure forming machines and vacuum/pressure forming machines with modified heating systems to ensure that the heating step does not dry the sheet. In the basic conversion process, sheet is heated on a thermal plate, formed into a mold with air pressure, cut, ejected from the mould, then stripped from the web. The web is the material left over after the trays have been stripped, and is reground and fed back into the extruder.

Independent of the material used, the sheet and tray making process produces up to 30% waste as standard, depending upon the tray dimensions and shape. Similar to all plastic regrind processes, there is some degradation in the material every time it is reprocessed. The use of reground Plantic® R1 has been qualified to two passes at 50% usage, but is currently used in the process at 30%. There are significant cost savings through the use of regrind.