In the area of lightweighting, innovation is ongoing, from the the omission of package outers, to the shift to flexible rather than rigid or semi-rigid packages, new designs for material reduction and process innovation that enables reductions in container wall thicknesses.
From 1991 to 2013, packages thus became 25% lighter overall. In 2013 alone, it's estimated that one million tonnes of plastics was saved worldwide as a result of weight reduction, despite the growing expectations on functionality.
At K, suppliers were keen to show the latest strides made in lightweighting without compromising functionality.
In the films sector, there is a marked trend towards increasingly thin and functional solutions. Functionality can be achieved with suitable additives, although most commonly with multi-layering. The demand for more and more layers has thus culminated in so-called nano-layer arrangements of 33 layers and more. Today, 3- and 5-layer films are standard products, not least so that less expensive materials can be used for the middle layer.
Barrier films are usually composed of 7 and more layers. This year at K, Hosokawa Alpine partnered with ExxonMobil to present an 11-layer film offering high barrier properties.
Hosakawa's compact 11-layer machine provides design flexibility for different possibilities from high barrier films to sophisticated polyolefin dedicated (POD) films.
Thanks to functional layers, multi-layer films usually have the advantage of being less thick than mono-products. While retaining its functionality, the film’s thickness can also be reduced by stretching.
In the injection moulding space, a process for making packaging thinner and lighter is injection compression moulding (ICM), which is becoming increasingly established in the industry.
This process differs from conventional injection moulding in that shrinkage is compensated for without injecting additional material in the holding-pressure phase. Instead, the ICM process makes use of a compression cycle, i.e. displacement within the mould.
This makes savings of material of up to 20% possible. At K, Netstal demonstrated the production of a PP margarine package weighing just 10.7 g.
With the appropriate machine equipment, deep-drawn IML trays can be more cost-effectively manufactured than injection-moulded ones. Illig Maschinenbau was showcasing its thermoforming systems capable of producing lighter trays faster and thus generating production costs of EUR 43.80 for 1,000 units compared to EUR 51.60 for the same trays manufactured by IML injection moulding.
