Meeting agri packaging challenge

Producing heavy duty bags for agricultural products demands special processes as PLAS-TEC Industries Sdn. Bhd. has known over the years. Being a manufacturer and exporter of flexible plastic packaging materials for industrial, food packaging and agricultural use, the company has been turning to more advanced equipment and processes. To date, its production of mainly rice bags and other heavy duty shipping sacks (HDSS) in various sizes as well as freezer bags for coconut milk packaging. Located in Sungai Siput in the state of Perak, Malaysia, the company currently has 3 x 3 layer water quenched blown film lines inclusive of the new blown line recently installed. Together with another new printing machine and a new laminating machine in the factory, the company is on its way to become a leading integrated flexible plastic packaging materials manufacturer and exporter in time to come. The rice bags produced by PLAS-TEC feature a reversed printed PP film laminated to a PE film, both films being 3 layers coextruded. The PP outer film gives the bag the glossy look and stiffness, while the PE inner film gives the bag the desired impact properties. However, there were two challenges faced by the company. One is that the PP material used in all three layers is a grade with slip and antiblock, the coefficient of friction (COF) of the rice bag has been low (~0.2). This resulted in the bag surface becoming very slipper and thus, difficult to stack properly. Frequent slipping of the bags led to breakages and higher risks for workers. Also, since the PE film previously used was a blend of LDPE + C4 LLDPE + mLLDPE in three layers, the owner of PLAS-Tec, Mr. Chang Seng Oon, had always wanted to reduce the thickness of the PE film. But implementation of this concept proved difficult, as the impact strength of the bag would be compromised when film thickness is reduced using the same formulation. Using a higher ratio of mLLDPE in the formulation is possible to overcome this, but this would not be cost effective, and it also makes the bag very soft, due to the low density of the mLLDPE. Effective solution taken Borouge was called in to provide PLAS-TEC with a solution in using its PE and PP grades. Borouge recommended its PP grade Bormod HD915CF. Being a high crystallinity grade with no slip and antiblock additives, PLAS-TEC is able to use this grade as a blend in the surface layers of the PP film to increase the COF. This not only solved the problem of bag slipping, it has also the added advantage of better print registration. For the 3 layer coext ruded PE blown fi lm, Borouge recommended its Enhanced PE grade FB2230 for use in the core layer. Mr. Chang commented that not only did FB2230 greatly improve the impact strength of the bag, it makes the bag feels stiffer, due to its slightly higher density, compared to mLLDPE. As a result, PLAS-TEC is able to downgauge the thickness of the PE film for its 25 kg rice bag, from 90 μm to 70 μm, whilst achieving better impact properties than before. The combination of Bormod HD915CF and FB2230 has enabled PLAS-TEC to overcome its challenge of rice bags slipping off and achieve better impact properties, even with reduced film thickness of more than 20%. In addition to that, it helps PLASTEC to open up new export markets which are typically very competitive. Borouge materials has helped PLAS-TEC to develop new applications. For example, the packaging of coconut milk at -20 deg C was originally done using a bag with a nylon film laminated to a PE film. The nylon film, besides providing gas barrier, also provides low temperature impact resistance together with the PE film. Now, by using FB2230 in the PE film, the low temperature impact resistance properties of the PE film is so greatly enhanced that PLAS-TEC can afford to eliminate the use of the more expensive nylon film, and replace it with a much cheaperNike Air Jordan 1 Mens