PLAST 2018 | EXHIBITION REVIEW
While Plast 2018 attracted a number of foreign visitors and hosted numerous international exhibitors, many of the innovations there were
home-grown.Peter Mapleston and reports on some of the film and sheet highlights from the show
Made in Italy: film and sheet innovations from Plast 2018
Some of the most impressive spectacles at any major plastics show are the gigantic blown film lines with towers that almost touch the roof. Given how many extrusion equipment makers there are in northern Italy, you might expect the Plast exhibition in Rho, just outside Milan, to excel in this regard. You would be wrong. Precisely because the
showgrounds are so close to where these compa- nies make their machines, they prefer to save costs by putting on open houses and bus people from the show. So this year, in late May and early June, Plast 2018 was graced with just two blown film lines.
Once again, Macchi claimed the prize for the most imposing piece of equipment running in the halls, a giant high-output POD (PolyOlefin Dedi- cated) blown-film line fitted with a new double-lip air ring from German company Kdesign. “Traditionally, for high-output lines like this, we would use a three-lip design, but this one makes life easier for the operator,” said Claudio Gri- gnaschi, international area manager. Automatic thickness control has been integrated into the system. The line was producing five-layer
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45-micron collation shrink film using Dow materials. “Five-layer extrusion is now spreading all over the world,” Grignaschi said. “It can do everything that three-layer can do, but it can make better, thinner film, at lower cost.” Macchi says that thanks to the close cooperation its technical department has with Dow Chemical on developing the most suitable formulations for multilayer films, the five-layer POD line at the show was able to reach an output of over 1000 kg/h – de- spite the height of the tower being limited by the hall ceiling. Nearby, Macchi hosted an information point
where visitors could find out about its new line management software – and where its partner Siemens explained how Industry 4.0 systems can lead to smart film extrusion factories. Only one other blown film line was running at the show – on the Tecom stand. This was a three-layer line processing Novamont’s Mater-Bi biopolymer. A combination of a clear grade for the external layers and an opaque grade for the core resulted in a highly translucent film rather thicker than Macchi’s, at 165 microns; mechanical properties of the biopoly-
July/August 2018 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 33
Main image: Tecom, which was processing Novamont’s Mater-Bi biopolymer, was showing one of only two blown film lines at the show
PHOTO: PETER MAPLESTON
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