MATERIALS | THERMOFORMING
Right: LyondellBasell’s Moplen
EP490H is a PP grade used to make extruded foamed sheet
Claimed benefits of PP included: a low (or competitive) global warming potential versus other polymers; low density; and the ability to process it at high speeds – such as using thermoforming. It can also be separated easily during sorting and cleaned relatively easily. “It’s also the best feedstock for advanced recycling processes,” he said.
In some modern process- es – such as dissolution – it can achieve ‘close to virgin’ quality, he said. The company already offers thin wall injection moulding grades – and is in the process of devel- oping high-end thermoforming PP grades.
PP sustainability boost Luan Gaviao – global market development man- ager – and Synco de Vogel, technical service representative at Synthomer, told delegates that innovation in thermoformed packaging can help brands to hit sustainability targets.
The company’s
additive products can be used to modify polymers in order to make mono-material designs possible. Here, it says it can modify polypropylene (PP) to have equivalent performance with polystyrene (PS) – but with better sustainabil- ity performance. “However, thermoforming PP is
not an easy task,” they said.
Typical problems include sagging sheet, a narrow temperature window,
slower production cycles and the risk of uneven
shrinkage. The way around this was to add its Plastvalence T to PP “so that it behaves like PS”. This included making PP stiffer and giving it a wider processing window and medium ductility. In a trial, it was processed at high speed on a
Battenfeld-Cincinnati sheet extrusion line then thermoformed on a Hassia P500 form-fill-seal machine. It was used to make 0.5mm thick PP sheet, using a Sabic sheet grade and 16% Plastva- lence T. This compared with a 0.6mm PS sheet
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