GEW UV Hot Melt Coatings bring sustainable,
short-run solutions at Nu-Coat Nu-Coat specialises in the manufacture and supply of self-adhesive materials to the signage, display and graphics market for a broad variety of applications
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ituated in the Welsh Valleys, the company has carved out a niche in the market by gearing its processes towards the production of specialist materials in relatively short runs, dealing in the smaller order volumes that many of its customers prefer. Rob Musto, operations director at Nu-Coat, outlines their strategy: “Nu-Coat originated from concept back in 2014, mainly to produce niche products to fill a gap in the market for self- adhesives that the bigger players in the market don’t produce and wouldn’t entertain producing because of volume.”
“Flexibility is key for us, we can change very, very quickly, whereas in comparison to some of the main players, that could take days and weeks in the campaign-type production that they operate under. We also don’t need the large volumes that they require.
“With the small footprint of our coating line, that’s probably half the length of a curing oven for our competitors. We achieve a cure within a few metres only, whereas if I compare that to a solvent-based system you’re looking at a minimum of 50 metres to set up the process and probably until they validate what they’ve actually coated and cured, you’re into hundreds of metres of material before they start. We probably can verify within 10 metres of a setup.” From the outset, the production team at Nu-Coat had a distinct plan to produce using UV curing technology. They had been advised of the production and sustainability benefits of the UV Hot Melt curing process through their consultation with Tim Self at TS Converting, manufacturer of the renowned Elite Cameron range of coating and converting machinery. As Tim explains: “We design machines specifically to suit customers’ requirements. The project that we engaged with our friends at Nu- Coat was to develop a range of UV-based Hot Melt applications where we brought together lots of different disciplines all in one machine, to enable them to produce products that traditionally would have been made using solvent-based and water- based systems.”
Musto was particularly focused on the environmental benefits of UV Hot Melt, before discovering the range of production benefits it brings; as he states: “The typical production and
GEW’s NUVA2 system is fitted into a retractable hood for easy web access, cleaning and maintenance
Hot melt adhesive is applied to the web and instantly cured when exposed to UV light.
products in the market are solvent-based or water- based adhesive technologies. What we wanted to do from day one is become a greener production site for all of the standard product ranges, across a broad spectrum of applications.
“With UV we are solvent-free, so we don’t have to worry about destroying any solvent waste either through extraction processes or recycling or
cleaning. We have no requirement for additional heat sources, abatement systems, all using electrical energy. Without solvents, we don’t have the concerns about the destruction of the VOCs that are generated, which is through another heat source of either an oxidation chamber or some other abatement system, which also then emits a certain amount of pollutants into the air.”
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March 2023
www.convertermag.com
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