Plastics News - Show Daily - October 19, 2022 - 9

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Plastics News, October 19, 2022 * 9
Development of better bottles, preforms
By David Vink
Plastics News Correspondent
An innovative bottle design
from Manville, N.J.-based Saniton
Plastic LLC (Hall 5, Booth D09)
fi rst made its appearance at the
September 2022 Drinktec 2022
beverage industry fair in Munich.
Although the PET bottle retains
a predominantly round shape, it
breaks conventional bottle design
by interlocking with other bottles
of the same type. As it eliminates
inevitable spaces between conventional
bottles when they are
packed together, Saniton says
shipping and storing costs are 35
percent lower. Saniton bottles are
available in fi ve sizes between 50
and 2,000 milliliters.
Saniton Plastic claims to be the
only plastic bottle manufacturing
company in the world with patented
technology for production
of interlocking plastic bottles. It
says it is not just a plastic bottle
producer, but " a technology company
with a vision to change the
world " and says it achieves this
by " reducing costs and the environmental
impact right through
the logistics chain. "
Although Saniton has illustrated
how many of its bottles can fi t into
a cardboard box, it claims that
cardboard boxes can, in fact, be
eliminated. It says 377 of its bottles
can fi t in one layer within an area
that accommodates only 324 of a
competitor's bottles. The greater
stability obtained by interlocking
means seven stacked layers of
bottles can be reliably carried on
a palette, while conventional bottles
do not achieve more than fi ve
or six layers before the stack becomes
unstable, which means that
typically 2,639 bottles instead of
1,994 bottles can fi t onto a palette.
As a spinoff from Queens University
Belfast founded in 2011
by Yannis
Menary, Belfast, Northern Ireland-based
BMT Blow Moulding
Technologies Ltd. (Hall 13, Booth
D50) presented its know-how in
simulation at Drinktec 2022. BMT
was founded initially on the basis
of THERMOscan equipment, developed
to measure PET preform
temperature profi les.
The company claims THERMOscan
is " the only solution to measure
preform internal, external and circumferential
temperature profi les. "
Assisted by artifi cial intelligence,
the temperature profi le data provides
an understanding of preform
behavior during processing so that
processing can be optimized. BMT
boasts: " We measure things others
ignore, so we answer questions
no one else can. " This results in
" smart " decisions benefi ting innovation
and faster time to market.
A BLOWscan instrument and
software provides optimization
further down the line by analysis
of the stretch blow molding
process. It also allows heated
preforms to be released prior to
blowing for THERMOscan temperature
profi le assessment. A
FREEblow module uses a highspeed
camera to follow bottle
shape during blowing.
Hamburg-based KHS GmbH
(Hall 13, Booth B38) presented a
500-milliliter lightweight bottle for
carbonated soft drinks at Drinktec,
with weight reduced from
typically 12.5 grams to 9.9 grams,
excluding the screw cap, saying
the bottle has already been proved
in the market in production of 280
million bottles per year. The bottle
is produced in a combination of 50
percent recycled PET, said to cost
€2,450 per tonne, and 50 percent
virgin PET, costing slightly less at
apparently €1,900 per tonne.
Despite use of a proportion of
more expensive recycled PET, KHS
says material cost per bottle is
lower than an equivalent but conventional
heavier-weight bottle
blow molded in 100 percent virgin
PET, as less PET is used. Less PET
results in lower blow molding and
secondary packaging cost, KHS
said. The overall saving works out
at around €1.53 million per year at
the mentioned production rate of
280 million bottles per year.
Similar savings in weight and
cost can also be obtained with
still water bottles, where KHS has
managed to reduce weight from
typically 8.5 grams to 7.2 grams.
KHS said such lightweighting
measures can benefi t the environment
with up to 18 percent CO2
equivalent emissions reduction.
Soltau, Germany-based blow
mold producer Röders GmbH
(Hall 1, Booth A35) says it has produced
around 100,000 blow molds
over the past 40 years and currently
produces more than 5,000
molds per year, in sizes for containers
up to 30 liters in volume.
Managing
Director
Jürgen
Röders told Plastics News the
mold base designed by the company
and displayed on its DrinkTop
view of three interlocking Saniton
Plastic bottles. Saniton Plastic LLC photo
tec booth reduces energy consumption,
as it has been designed
to signifi cantly reduce blowing
pressure, down to 15 bar, compared
with conventionally used
mold bases operating at 30 bar
pressure. Key to low-pressure operation
is the special geometry of
the mold base and
the design of its ventilation.
Many customers
have already
adopted it, the company
said.
Also shown at
Drinktec were aluminum
blow molds
for hot-fi ll PET bottles.
These are treated
with hard yet
smooth coatings developed
by Röders,
making aluminum a
viable alternative to
steel molds, as they
are more easily and therefore less
expensively machined than steel
molds. Röders sometimes supplies
molds with movable mold
parts or with inserts so that different
bottle designs can be produced
within a single mold.
Advancing
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Formulated for demanding engineered
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Hall 6 Stand A07
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Plastics News - Show Daily - October 19, 2022

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