INNOVATION | CAPS AND CLOSURES
Right: At NPE, KraussMaffei produced special LSR duckbill dosing caps for the medical industry
machine agnostic, provided it has the required performance specifics to mould the parts. The Kortec Connect offering has been used successfully in moulding coffee cups, caps, closures, personal care items, thin-wall and medical parts, and it can also be added to a PET [preform] system.”
LSR medical closures At NPE in May, KraussMaffei displayed its prowess in equipment for high-precision processing with liquid silicon rubbers (LSR), for production of medical closures. LSRs are on the rise in the US, the company says. “The medical technology and automotive industries in particular are becoming increasingly interested in the outstanding physical and chemical properties of the material. However, the material has an extremely low viscosity, especially highly transparent silicone, and it requires especially high precision during injection.” The PX 51-55 SilcoSet producing special dosing caps (duckbills) at NPE featured a hydraulic nozzle contact force with an electric injection unit to make the process safe and precise. A spring-loaded return-flow lock of the screw guaranteed reproduc- ible closing behaviour. The PX 51-55 SilcoSet is part of KM’s latest all-electric injection moulding machine series. “The PX series combines the advantages of an all-electric injection moulding machine with maximum modularity,” says Paul Caprio, President of Krauss- Maffei Corporation in the US. “Our customers appreciate the high degree of variety and flexibility, both in configuring the right machine, for example, using our wide range of clamping unit and injection unit combinations, and in production or retrofitting.
For example, the PX 51-55 at NPE features larger platens for the next level of clamping force.”
New materials Polymer makers are hard at work refining their offerings for the caps and closures market. SABIC introduced a new material at the Plastic Closure Innovations 2018 conference organised by Injection World publisher AMI in Berlin in May. “With our extensive range of polyethylenes and polypropylenes, SABIC has already built a strong position in caps and closures,” says Hans Pierik, SABIC’s global Caps and Closures segment leader. “But the caps and closures market is growing and changing all the time, and we are moving quickly to respond to current and future developments.” SABIC has developed a new multi-modal grade
of HDPE with excellent organoleptics for caps for carbonated soft drinks (CSDs). The company says SABIC HDPE CCX027C “combines an excellent environmental stress cracking resistance (ESCR) with good flow, allowing cap manufacturers to design very lightweight closures.” The polymer exhibits strong shear thinning, which means that even though it has a relatively low MFI (0.8 g/10 min, 2.16 kg), its flow characteristics during injection moulding are similar to those of a unimodal HDPE with an MFI more than three times higher. The company says it is now addressing several
Compared to the reference grade, SABIC HDPE CCX027C polymer shows higher ESCR, better flow, improved tensile and impact performance (SH= Stress Hardening)
22 INJECTION WORLD | July/August 2018
trends in the market related to sustainability issues. Improvements to ESCR and physical properties like stiffness and impact strength will enable extra lightweighting; reductions in required processing temperatures will help processors save energy and cut cycle times; and even better organoleptics will meet needs for caps that have no effect on the taste
www.injectionworld.com
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