New polypropylene grade with superior performance characteristics

New polypropylene (PP) delivers downgauging and energy reduction during production of light-weight hinged closures.

In Use – Commercially available.

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Benefits
Packaging Reduction, Resource efficiency (e.g. filling line efficiency)

Product Categories
Drinks, Food, Home Improvement, Household & Personal Care

Relevant Materials
Plastic – Flexible, Plastic – rigid

Relevant Packaging Formats
Closures and dispensers (including: triggers, dosing aids, reseal and reclose devices etc.)

Supply Chain Phase
Design

Details

A leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions has developed a new polypropylene grade which offers advanced product performance in the conversion of lightweight closure solutions through more efficient and environmentally considerate manufacturing. The new material offers packaging converters a saving in cycle time of up to 10% and a subsequent energy reduction of up to 5% in the creation of lightweight hinge closures. This is achieved due to the high fluidity of the grade, which simplifies processing for a smoother production cycle.

The new grade also offers a number of performance advantages over existing materials including

Superior stiffness/impact balance
Excellent transparency
Good optical appeal
Good organoleptics (the ability to preserve the desired product taste and appearance)
Aproved for use in food contact applications.

The exceptionally high stiffness of this new polyproylene grade potentially allows downgauging by up to 10% without losing overall mechanical properties of the final product at the reduced wall thickness.

This new polypropylene grade was launched by Borealis as BorPure™ RF490MO.

The content in this entry has been obtained from publicly available information sources only (e.g. press releases, website and trade press articles) and is subject to completion of a validation process with the technology supplier.

Potential Benefits

The new grade offers environnental benefits in two aspects:

Reduced energy consumption and therefore lower cost and carbon footprint during production - the high fluidity of the grade simplifies processing for a smoother production cycle, enabling converters to use 20% lower barrel temperatures than in standard conditions. This contributes to faster crystallisation behaviour creating a saving in cycle time of up to 10%. The reduction in temperature allows converters to use up to 5% less energy.
Reduced material usage - the superior stiffness/impact balance allows downgauging by up to 10% for light-weight hinged closures.

Intellectual Property

This new polypropylene grade has been developed by Borealis Group as BorPure™ RF490MO and the material is trademarked by them.

Consultant View

This innovative new polypropylene has been designed to overcome some of the issues experienced with existing Polypropylenes and as a result the new material offers a number of significant benefits over existing materials. As well as offering superior characteristics to existing materials the new product is easier to convert and this creates the potential for energy savings at the manufacturing and converting stage, thereby delivering both environmental benefits and potential cost savings.

Reviewers who are interested in technologies to reduce the environmental impact of closures should search the REID database using the term "Closures".

Contacts and Further Information

Rainer Höfling, Vice President Business Unit Moulding

Borealis AG
IZD Tower
Wagramer Strasse 17-19
A-1220 Vienna
Tel: +43 1 22 400 302
www.borealisgroup.com