DuPont Shows Off New Film Structures

DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers, Wilmington, Del., rolled out a series of packaging innovations at last month’s Interpack 2014 show in Dusseldorf, Germany. All were the result of collaborations with extrusion machine builders.

•DuPont has ongoing projects with Kuhne of Germany on new lidding and shrink-film structures. Both involved Kuhne’s TripleBubble water-quenched, biaxially oriented film technology. In lidding film, DuPont reports that initial laboratory results on a new structure based on its Appeel modified ethylene acrylate resin as sealing layer and its Bynel anhydride-modified LLDPE as a tie layer show material savings of up to 50% vs. conventional laminate structures. In shrink film, Kuhne and DuPont are working with DuPont’s Surlyn ionomer as a shrink layer and as a sealant (photo).

•DuPont worked with Reifenhauser Kiefel Extrusion (U.S. office in Wichita, Kan.) on a nine-layer, 200-micron film for thermoforming that uses 20% less material than seven-layer nylon/PE structures. This film was processed on Reifenhauser’s Evolution blown film line and features a new, high-stiffness version of Surlyn.

•DuPont and Reifenhauser also combined to produce peelable, surface-printable, multi-layer, high-barrier lidding films that seal directly to APET trays. This film was also produced with Reifenhauser’s Evolution barrier blown film technology and relies on a new grade of DuPont PET-based Appeel sealant resin. Traditional lidding films are formulated with an LDPE-based sealing layer coextruded or laminated to the APET structure. DuPont says using Appeel eliminates the need for an additional polyolefin-based lamination film on the APET tray. As a result, trims reportedly can be recycled directly; bottom-web costs can be reduced by up to 40%; and total weight of the tray can be up to 15% less without loss of stiffness.