FPT 3 2018

How to successfully enter the food packaging market

Flexible Packaging goes digital prin ng

Sustainable approach to recycling of mul layer exible packaging

The issues related to an uncontrolled ink transfer

From label printer to exible packaging producer 1

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More and more machinery manufacturers launch digital printing presses for flexible packaging. This article gives you a quick overview and includes an interview with Smithers Pira about the future of digital printing for flexible packaging.

Sustainable approach to recycling of multilayer flexible packaging using switchable hydrophicility solvents

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All signs are pointing to higher recycling rates for packaging producers. A smart circular economy is creating new opportunities for the industry.

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Uncontrolled ink transfer, dirty screen and poor print quality on central impressions

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At present, plastic packaging is almost exclusively perceived as a worldwide waste problem hiding its core functionality. And in truth with regards to its end-of-life: the gaps should continue to be closed, including in Europe, but above all in the main polluter countries of Asia.

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Vetas, a small shopping bag producer from the Isanbul region has invested in an Uteco Onxy in order to grow its business into the flexible packaging industry.

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Desen Etiket is a label producer who recently bought a CI flexo press to enter the food packaging market. Now they ordered their second press.

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Major Change Flexible Packaging Technology I am delighted to inform you about a major change at Flexible Packaging Technology. As of next year, the company that publishes Flexible Packaging Technology will be registered in Toronto.

We have decided to move the company from Estonia to Canada for a multitude of reasons. Recently, the European Union has implemented certain laws, which initially sound beneficial to its citizens. However, as often, there are plenty of negative—probably unintended—side effects that can cause all kind of issues, especially for smaller enterprises like ours.

However, the main reason was a stronger focus on the Americas. In the next few years, Flexible Packaging Technology will spend more time in both the established markets in Canada and the USA, as well as all the emerging markets in the south, such as Mexico, Colombia and Peru. The USA is the single biggest market among our readership, with Canada also playing a significant role. The goal is to further develop our position in these markets, as well as venture in new markets in Latin America.

Having said that, we will still spend sufficient time in Europe to meet with both packaging producers and machinery suppliers.

By the way, we are on the lookout for a writer on a freelance basis. If you know anybody, feel free to give us a nod in their direction.

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Digital Printing Of Flexible Packaging To many, digital printing and flexible packaging seem poles apart, with no obvious common ground between the two. However, over the past few years, many different players in the print industry have collaborated to reduce this gap between the two extremes. Here are some of the most prolific partnerships that have come together in recent years to ensure that digital presses get a solid foothold in the packaging segment.

for faster time-to-market and very short order Windmöller & Hölscher has lengths was the driving force for this machine. The been making news for its company has been rerecent announcement, in searching the concept for that they are going ahead several years, by studying with the development of a digital press that will bring the practical requirements the power of digital to flexi- of the segment and evaluating existing technologies. ble packaging. Dr. Jürgen This research eventually led Vutz, CEO of W&H, acknowledges that the need to a concept machine that goes beyond the limitations of existing technologies.

Windmöller & Hölscher

According to Sven Michael, head of the W&H digital team, the logical next step was to bring the concept to life with the right

partners. Since this machine will be based on piezo inkjet technology, Xaar has already tied up with W&H, and their 5601 printhead will drive the new press.

Vutz adds that with W&H’s expertise in digital, plus the inherent strengths their partners will bring, W&H will soon be able to deliver a functioning digital press that will address the specific needs of flexible packaging printers: high availability, daily usability and high speeds.

Uteco Uteco and Kodak have commercially launched the Sapphire Evo digital press.

Powered by Kodak’s Stream

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tion capability of 9,000 linear meters per hour, the Sapphire Evo gives packaging service providers and converters a chance to go digital without compromising on quality, productivity or economy.

Inkjet Technology, the Sapphire Evo is positioned as an ideal solution for hybrid digital and conventional printers, for short run lengths as well as for economic production of highvolume print jobs. It can handle media up to 650 mm in width and has CMYK printing capabilities with optional in-line priming and varnishing. With a produc-

Last year, at Labelexpo Europe, Uteco, in collaboration with ebeam Technologies and INX Digital, had also introduced Gaia—an end-to-end inkjet production line for mass personalized, indirect food contact-safe flexible packaging and labels.

The Gaia gives packaging converters and label printers the choice of visually

stunning custom print opportunities, with no reduction in quality. Gaia’s 4color system is driven by the JetINX printhead and uses photoinitiator-free inkjet EB curable inks from INX Digital. EB curing significantly reduces the amount of VOCs released, and virtually eliminates the need for solvents, making it safer for the environment.

Comexi The HP Indigo 20000 is specifically designed for flexible packaging where printers have been asking for a cost -effective digital solution to print short runs. Unlike HP’s other sheet-fed systems, the Indigo 10000 and 30000 systems, the Indigo 20000 device is web press, which not only makes it ideal for label printing where digital has already established its foothold, but also for flexible packaging printers, where digital has yet to make its presence felt. The Indigo 20000 prints a 30” web of flexible packaging film and prints in CMYKOV

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colors, plus white, using liquid electrophotographic technology, which is also used in HP’s WS4000 & WS6000 Label Presses.

With CMY-only printing enabled, the 20000 device reaches a top speed of 147 feet per minute.

ket for digital printing in flexible packaging. As the demand for reduced product life cycles and personalized & mass-customized packaging began to rise, Comexi decided to develop a new product that offered flexible packaging printers the best packaging in the shortest time possible.

Thanks to its fast and intuitive set-up, compact footprint and use of fast curing water-based inks, the Nexus L20000, in combination with the HP Indigo 20000, is now seen as the perfect solution for flexi packaging printers.

In another collaboration, which highlights the push to digital for flexible packaging printers, Comexi launched the Nexus L20000—the first ever laminating machine for flexible packaging applications. It is specially designed to complement the HP Indigo 20000 digital press, giving an indication of how rapidly alliances are Bobst forming to corner the mar-

One of the leading equipment and print service providers to the packaging and label industry, Bobst announced a JV with Radex, a startup in the DOD inkjet

digital printing. Known as Mouvent, the new venture will focus on delivering compact, new digital machines for multiple segments such as textile, labels, corrugated board, flexible packaging and even folding cartons.

Mouvent will offer end-toend integrated solutions that are modular and scalable, instead of forcing printers to choose different print bars for different applications and widths. The modular nature of the system will also also result in quicker startups and reduce the number of fine adjustments, which will lead to improved productivity.

Simon Rothen, the CEO of Mouvent, is quite confident that the new digital printers will revolutionize the flexible packaging printers’ new opportunities to succeed, with shorter lead times, improved productivity and infinite variations.

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Exclusive interview with SmithersPira There is a lot of buzz around digital printing, and some concerns as well as some misunderstandings. We interviewed Sean Smyth, Principal Consultant – Print SmithersPira to bring some light into the dark.

What is the percentage of flexible packaging printed digitally (now and prediction in 5 years)?

In 2018 just under 0.1% in volume terms which will double to 0.2% by 2023 – much higher in value terms!

At Smithers Pira we regularly track the market for all print processes in packaging, and digital in particular is growing strongly. Our recent study the Future of Digital Print for Packaging to 2022 [https:// www.smitherspira.com/ industry-market-reports/ printing/digital-print-forpackaging-to-2022] shows that globally, digitally printing flexible packs was worth $348.5 million in 2017, and this value will more than

double to $765.7 million in 2022.

be available for a few years.

Compared to labels, foldHow many digital print- ing cartons, corrugated? ing machines for flexible Well behind – flexible is packaging are sold per complicated, the light, thin year? multi material films are The only pure digital flexible more difficult to print on – and there are lots of differmachine is HP’s Indigo ent types making surfaces 20000 press, there are about 150-170 of these af- quite tricky. ter 5 years, but some are How many flexo, graused for labels (and even vure, offset, and digital signage). There are some narrower Indigos and inkjet printing presses for flexible packaging will be presses for lidding and sold in 2025? some blister backs, etc. The first highperformance hybrid press is Difficult to say – as the same machine may be used now undergoing beta testing in Italy – we are watch- for any web printing – laing with interest how it de- bels, cartons and corrugated liner on the same mavelops. There are new chine. In total there will be players making announcements, eg from Windmőller thousands of new presses sold each year, demand for & Hőlscher, but this won’t

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flexibles is growing and this level is expected to remain, although the performance is increasing with automation and better control.

What is the technology (Inkjet, toner, etc) that will be the preferred choice, and why?

For digital, it is likely to be water-based inkjet. Currently it is HP Indigo, but it is very difficult to scale in width or speed. Waterbased inkjet can be scaled, Landa has 1.05m at 100m per minute rising to 200m in the pipeline, and W&H probably wider. Water based gives a thinner film than UV, and removes potential concerns about food safety which will be critical as food represents the bulk of the market.

In general, what are the advantages digital printing when compared with flexo and gravure?

Removing the cost and time of plates (or cylinders) provides a major economic ad-

vantage for short to medium runs, saving significant set-up costs which translate into quite high minimum order quantities. Digital systems allow full variability which makes versioning cheaper and easier – there can be major time savings (as well as costs) in multiversion SKU production.

The other benefit for converters will be to remove some of the shorter run jobs from flexo or gravure presses, releasing capacity for longer runs that can be produced more effectively.

In general, what are the disadvantages digital printing when compared with flexo and gravure?

cannot be matched, yet.

In general, what materials (thickness, etc) that are used for flexo or gravure can be printed digitally?

Virtually any material that can be printed with analogue inks can be printed digitally, with the right surface pre-treatment, or priming. The products will require extensive testing – for compatibility with the substrates, coatings, laminates, adhesives and performance on filling lines, etc. must be proven.

The unit cost , for medium or long runs, particularly for heavily inked designs including white. Using process colours means some brand spot colours cannot be matched accurately, there will be issues to get the method adopted and some brands will be reluctant to transfer. Some speciality inks (metallics/fluorescents)

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Sustainable approach to recycling of multilayer flexible packaging using switchable hydrophilicity solvents Multilayer Flexible Packaging Waste (MFPW) represents the largest fraction of packaging waste and is mainly composed of multiple plastic films laminated with Al foil. In the EU, mechanical and chemical recycling technologies are usually used to separate polymeric fractions from Al; however, these recycling practices have inherent crucial restrictions related to the recycling rate (<66%), energy consumption, CO2 emissions, sustainability, and immiscibility of the recovered polymer blends, which is contrary to the aims for a circular economy strategy recently introduced in the EU. As part of this strategy implementation, the current research aims to develop a sustainable chemicalultrasonic treatment approach for the recycling of packaging waste (including MFPW) while overcoming the above-mentioned limitations. In the developed approach, switchable hydrophilicity solvents (SHSs) were used as sustainable chemicals to break the chemical and mechanical bonds between MFPW layers, thus allowing separating all the layers individually and achieving a recycling rate >99% while making the reprocessing of extracted polymers much simpler.

Dissolved plastic materials could easily be recovered in the form of solid residues

without heating through saturation of an adhesive polymer/ SHS solution by CO2 under cooling, thus changing the hydrophilicity of the solvent and converting it into a polar water-miscible form. Although the experiments were conducted on the lab-scale on six different types of MFPW, selected depending on the most active packaging technologies in the EU (as used for potato chips, chocolate, bakery goods, ground coffee, ice cream, and biscuits), the authors took into account the possibility of technology implementation at

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the industrial scale through designing a technology layout for the developed approach (based on the sequence of treatment processes and the obtained results).

Metallographic microscopy, SEM-EDS, FTIR, and TGA were used to examine the materials recovered from each MFPW type as well as the changes in the SHS solvent. Lastly, the CO2 -equivalent emissions and economic performance of the developed technology were evaluated.

Introduction According to Eurostat Statistics Explained, the amount of packaging waste generated in the EU between 2005 and 2014 was estimated at 79 ± 1.25 million ton per year, with the following composition: plastic (19 wt%),

glass (19 wt%), wood (16 wt%), metal (5 wt%), and paper and cardboard (41 wt%).1 Plastic films, including PP, PVC, PET, PS films, are considered one of the most preferred options for packaging manufacturing due to their excellent barrier properties, good chemical resistance and strength, transparency, stretching capabilities, ease of extrusion into sheets, and cheapness.2 In order to sufficiently protect sensitive food products and extend their shelf-life, provide a barrier from water vapors, air, odors, UV light, and gases while having high mechanical strength, good sealability, and resistance at low temperatures, plastic films laminated with different monomers and aluminum foil are used

to manufacture food packaging by coextrusion or lamination production technology. This type of packaging is usually referred to as “multilayer flexible packaging” (MFP) and represents 17% of all produced packaging films. The structure of such MFP normally includes one or more adhesive layers and printing layers.3–6 Currently, MFP is widely used for the preservation and distribution of food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, and other consumable products; the plastic packaging used for this purpose represents 40% of the total production of plastic in the EU and requires more than 19 million tons of oil and gas to produce, with an estimated annual increase of 5– 7%.7,8 At the end of its shelf-life, MFP be-

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comes waste, but crucially with a poor recyclability due to its complex structure, and therefore most of these bulk materials are processed either in sanitary landfills or by incineration, counteracting the efforts directed toward reaching the goals of a circular economy or crude oil independence while causing serious environmental concerns. On the contrary, the recycling of single-layer films, such as PE, PP, PVC, PS, or PET films, is technically solvable and currently there are many companies working in the processing of these films and remanufacturing them into new products.6 Therefore, at the beginning of 2018, the European Commission adopted a new set of measures to transform Europe’s economy into a more sustainable one and to implement the ambitious Circular Economy (CE) Action Plan. This plan highlights that, by 2030, all plastic packaging should be recyclable.9 The aim was that this strategy could be achieved through the im-

proved collection, recycling, design, remanufacturing, and consumption of plastic packaging, including multilayer flexible packaging waste (MFPW), thus closing the loop of the packaging life cycle and bringing benefits for both the environment and the economy.10 It is worth mentioning that several strategies and models have been developed to improve the collection, design, remanufacturing, and consumption stages; some of these are already used with good performance.11,12 At the same time, the recycling stage and separation of the polymeric fraction from aluminum foils of composite packaging still remains the main challenge for the CE, especially since the performance and quality of all CE stages depends entirely on the recycling stage, yet the average packaging recycling rate in the EU is rather

low at the moment (<66%).1,13 Therefore, intensive efforts are now focused on developing new recycling techniques with high recovery rates to maintain natural resources and to reduce the life-cycle environmental impacts significantly.14,15 During a review of packaging recycling practices in the EU, it was found that mechanical and thermal/chemical treatment (e.g., chemolysis, pyrolysis, fluid catalytic cracking, hydrogen techniques, and gasification) are the predominant industrial technologies. However, generally these recycling practices suffer from a

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number of disadvantages related to e.g., their recycling rate, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, sustainability, thermomechanical or lifetime degradation, the immiscibility of polymer blends, undesirable carbon residue, wax, and gas emissions produced, as well as high costs.16,17 Recently, a dissolution technique was developed to recover all the layers of a multilayer composite waste (such as waste printed circuit boards and packaging waste) using different solvents, achieving a recycling rate >98%.18– 20 This chemical treatment approach can be summarized as a separation of the composite layers by dissolution of the adhesive polymer and breakage of the adhesive bonding between the layers of waste packaging by different solvent types, such as xylene, toluene, hexane, ethanol, and acetone.21 Although the results were promising in terms of the recycling rate and recovered material quality, the treatment needed to be followed by an

evaporation process to extract the dissolved polymer or by the addition of an anti -solvent, which subsequently consumed a lot of power and resulted in high CO2equivalent emissions.22 All the above-mentioned problems can be avoided by using switchablehydrophilicity solvents (SHSs), which can switch reversibly between one form that is miscible with water to another that forms a biphasic water mixture and which can change their properties on demand; SHSs are recommended as alternative green and sustainable solvents.23 Recently, SHSs were used in several applications with high performance, including biofuel production, product isolation and catalyst recycling, carbon dioxide chemical absorption, the extraction and recovery of diesel in oilbased drill cuttings, and microextraction.24–29

In a similar way, Samorì et al. (2017) used the SHS N,Ndimethylcyclohexylamine (DMCHA) to dissolve LDPE and recover Al from food aseptic packaging.30 The polymer was recovered by cooling in an ice bath with CO2 ambient without the evaporation of solvent. This new technique allowed successfully recovering >99% of the Al and >80% of the LDPE without compromising the quality in terms of oxidation or polymer degradation. However, the study was focused on a multilayer waste with only two types of materials: PE and Al, while in the real world waste packaging will typically contain multiple layers

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composed of different polymeric materials. Thereby, the current work aims to employ SHSs for the recycling of MFPW and to study the economic benefit of the new technology in order to define its potential for being applied on an industrial scale. The research was divided into two parts. Part (I) studied the structure of MFPW and the separation sequence of the developed approach, as well as the chemical composition of the recovered materials. At the same time part (II) was focused on the design of the technology layout for the developed technique (based on the sequence of the treatment processes and the results) and integration of the technology into the circular economy system.

different MFPW types were collected from wastes produced by local food shops in Lithuania, with the waste diversity factor taken into account in order to increase the accuracy of the final results. The MFPWs were selected depending on the most actively consumed food products by all generations (children, young, and old) in the EU with a specific packaging type, in particular packaging for potato chips, chocolate bars, bakery products, ground coffee, ice cream, and biscuits.31 All the selected samples were given specific codes, as illustrated in Fig. 1.

Then, the selected samples were washed and rinsed with distilled water to remove any dust, grease, chemicals, adExperimental 2.1 Materials hesive, smudge, and waste multilayer flexi- contamination, ble packaging type selection etc., and later and analysis N,Ndried for 24 h at Dimethylcyclohexylamine room tempera(DMCHA) and other reature in order to gents were supplied by Sig- prepare them ma-12 Aldrich Corp. Six for the separa-

tion process. After that, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to examine the selected MFPW samples and to determine their thickness, number of layers, and other morphological features at a voltage of 20 kV, magnification of 1.5 kX, and scale of 10 µm. The observation process was performed on cross-sections of the MFPW samples after cutting by a sharp cutter and coating by gold to avoid any deformation or plasticization of the polymeric surface as a result of the heat generated by the high voltage (20 kV) applied during the scanning process. Since

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the MFPW samples were tested as a very thin and flexible substrate, their direct fixation in a vertical position on the SEM holder was problematic. Therefore, a simple clamp fixator, as shown in Fig. 2, was prepared for the MFPW samples to ensure that the electron beam was perpendicular to the crosssection of the tested sample and to avoid possible sample deflection, thus improving the accuracy of the analysis. As can be seen, the studied samples were fixed between two metal corners, and the corners were assembled by screw after adjusting the sample position. The assembled corners with the sample were fixed on the SEM grid holder by a stand-

ard adhesive layer. Additionally, the chemical composition of the clamp fixator metal was analyzed by energy-dispersive spectrometry (EDS) to avoid any possible interference with the measurements for the MFPW. As shown in the EDS analysis, zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe) were the main elements of the fixator alloy besides a small amount of carbon (C) and oxygen (O).

Finally, SEM-EDS was used to analyze and determine the location and type of metallic and non-metallic elements in the MFPW layers. Fig. 1 shows the structure and basic elemental composition of each MFPW type obtained by SEM-EDS (line scanning option). As can be seen, all the sam-

ples had a multilayer structure (Al-polymer layers) with a total thickness in the range 35â&#x20AC;&#x201C;50 Îźm (note that the x-axis represents the distance or thickness). All the samples contained only one layer of Al foil, in some cases with additives, in particular with titanium (Ti); the foil layers were located mostly at the middle of the matrices. In addition, the other two elements, Zn and Fe, were found during the observation process; these readings were for the alloy of the clamp fixator, which was supported by the fact that the two elements were detected only at the outer edges of the MFPW and were not present inside the cross-section. Regarding the polymer layers, all the

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samples contained several layers, composed mainly from C and O. It is should be noted that the C and O readings were excluded from the present data to avoid interference with the data for the other elements, in particular Al. All the samples were re-examined after treatment to determine the possible changes in chemical composition and other properties, which are important as an indication of the probable applications for the recovered materials.

2.2 Multilayer flexible packaging waste separation procedure According to the literature, MFP is generally composed of several layers, as shown in Fig. 3: a coating layer (optional thin film to protect the printed symbols), an outer layer (layer provides a printing surface), a structural layer (gives the package its shape and prevents tearing and puncturing), a tie layer (combines two chemically dissimilar polymers (that tend to separate)), a barrier layer (this layer primarily keeps oxygen form infiltrating the

package), and a seal layer (the polymer in this layer usually has a low melting point so it can be heatsealed; it also must not interact chemically with the food it contacts).32,33 This structure can vary based on the food type and manufacturing companies. In order to recover all these layers from all the MFPW samples, chemical treatment by DMCHA was used to break the mechanical and chemical bonding between MFPW layers and to then dissolve the adhesive polymers to allow separation of all the layers, while ultrasonic treatment was employed to accelerate the separation of MFPW samples; the separation steps are presented in Fig. 4.

2.3 Dissolution process Regarding the optimum dissolution and extraction conditions, the experiments included three variable factors: the solid to liquid ratio, temperature,

and time. Samori et al.

(2017) performed the separation of Al from PE using DMCHA for food aseptic packaging (which has a similar structure to MFPW) at different solid to liquid ratios (1.25, 2.5, 5, 10, and 20 wt%) and temperatures (50 °C and 90 °C) in order to obtain the optimum extraction conditions. The results showed that the optimum solid to liquid ratio was 1:3 g ml−1.30 However, the primary experiments

by Samori et al. (2017) were conducted on only one waste sample, which eased the selection of conditions, while in the present research the experiments were conducted on six different samples, drastical-

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ly increasing the amount of preliminary experiments needed to establish the optimum conditions. Moreover, during the treatment procedures, all these waste samples were processed together under the same conditions due to the difficulty of sorting and due to economic considerations.

To overcome these issues and decrease the number of initial tries, in the present research the primary experiments were conducted at a constant solid to liquid ratio

of 1:3 g ml −1 (optimum result obtained by Samori et al. (2017)) and three different temperatures: 50 °C, 70 °C, and 90 °C. Although the highest temperature (90 °C) provided the fastest separation time, the colorless appearance of the films changed to yellow after treatment, meaning the treated films started to degrade, which could affect the thermal stability and crystallinity degree of the recovered polymers. By decreasing the temperature, degradation decreased significantly and the recovered

polymer films remained colorless, especially at the lowest temperature. Therefore, the final experiments were conducted at 1:3 g ml−1 and 50 °C. The separation time is a function of many parameters related to the total number of layers, the thickness of each layer, the chemical composition of each layer, etc., which are not the same in all products. Therefore, the separation time was obtained based on the optimum solid (MFPW) to liquid (DMCHA) ratio and temperature in the ultrasonic bath. It was

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noted that the studied samples of waste were composed of only four layers (coating, outer, barrier, and sealing layer) due to the short shelf-life of the contained products;34 the separation process was performed through using combined treatment over seven steps: a. Dissolution of the coating layers, including printing ink and paint in SHS – duration 10 min; b.

Simultaneously with step a, the sealing layers started to dissolve inside the SHS; ink/paint/sealing solution was obtained after 15–20 min; c. The barrier layer stared to separate from the outer layer in the form of aluminum flakes and particles, while the outer layer separated in the form of floating polymer films – 10 min after step b (Fig. 5A); d. Floating polymer films were collected from solution and centrifugation was used to precipitate the aluminum flakes and particles; after that the ink/paint/sealing/ SHS solution was carefully extracted by pipette (Fig. 5B); e. Ink/paint polymer

was recovered from the solution by the addition of the initial mixture to a double volume of H2O and cooling in an ice bath with CO2 bubbling for several hours; solidified ink/paint particles were extracted by filtration; f. The previous step was repeated again to extract the sealing polymer in the form of a residue from the solution; g. Finally, the regenerated solvent was heated at 40 °C overnight to remove CO2, recover solvent in its original neutral state, and separate out the water (Fig. 5C).

3. Recovered material characterizations Metallographic microscopy (model Orchid MCX300) was used to examine the mechanism of Al paint separation from the polymeric layers and other features of waste packages. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR, Vertex70 spectrom-

eter) was used to analyze and identify the chemical compounds of the recovered polymers and the regenerated DMCHA. Additionally, scanning electron microscopy (SEM; model BPI-T) and energydispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) was used to investigate the chemical composition of the recovered metal layers. Finally, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA-DTG; model TGA Q500 supplied by TA instruments) was used to check the thermal stability and glass transition temperature of the polymers recovered from the samples.

4. Results and discussion

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4.1 Separation mechanism Fig. 6 shows the separation mechanism of MFPW samples in the developed approach observed by metallographic microscopy with a scale of 500 µm. The observation process was divided into two parts; the first part was focused on examining the separation mechanism of the aluminum barrier layer (explained in detail in “Analysis of the barrier layer” section), while the second was devoted to examining the separation mechanism of the polymeric components, including the ink, paint layer, and sealing layers. As previously mentioned, the barrier layer is located between two polymer layers, namely the coating/outer layer and sealing layer; the barrier layer is connected with these layers by two types of bonding: chemical (molecular attraction) and mechanical (friction), which that are formed during the lamination process by an extrusion casting machine whereby the plastic materi-

als and barrier layer are oxidized by ozone from a long air-gap at a high temperature, which supports the formation of polar groups that are attracted to each other by molecular forces (such as the van der Waals’ forces) on their surfaces.20 These bonds were here seen to be parallel to the cross-section of the studied samples.

Also, there was another bonding (metallic bonding) perpendicular to the crosssection of the treated samples; this bond is responsible for linking the molecules of the barrier together and can be described by band theory.

According to this theory, this bond becomes weaker at a lower metal thickness and it is easily break-

able in comparison to parallel bonds.35 Here, the examination began by observing the cut samples in order to study the effect of the cutting on the morphology and the bonds mentioned above. As shown in the figure, the pretreatment had a positive effect on the perpendicular bonding, where the edges of the crushed

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samples (which were exposed to cutting) were accompanied by debris separated from the barrier layer in the form of flakes as a result of exposure of these edges to high shearing stress (in comparison with the very low thickness) during the cutting process,36 these debris disappeared completely when the observation point was moved away from the edges of the samples, as shown in Fig. 6A. With the beginning of the chemical treatment, the amount of debris increased dramatically and the rate of breakage of the vertical bonds increased due to the sound-waves-induced vibration generated during the treatment Fig. 6B and C. It is worth mentioning that the chemical treatment did not have a significant impact on these bonds compared to ultrasonic treatment because the eďŹ&#x20AC;ect of chemical treatment lies in breakage of the bonds by dissolution, while the barrier layers have a high resistance for dissolution.

However, chemical treat-

ment had a significant impact on the parallel bonds through penetration between the layers of the MFPW samples and by breaking them by dissolution, eventually liberating the barrier flakes Fig. 6D. Over time, SHS penetrated more between the layers; finally, following removal of the supporting vertical bonds, all the barrier flakes became separated and formed a suspension with the SHSs Fig. 6E and F.30 Fig. 6G shows a sediment layer formed inside the solution after leaving it for several hours. It is clear that the separated barrier was aggregated in clusters composed of silver-colored barrier flakes and a red-colored liquid phase, while Fig. 6I illustrates the separate flakes after filtration.

As shown in the figure, the separated flakes were partially contaminated

and mixed with some amount of black particles (organic material) produced from the ink, paint, or sealing layer (detailed explanation in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Analysis of the barrier layerâ&#x20AC;? section), therefore, the contaminated flakes were exposed to calcination to remove any organic materials and to convert them to fine power, as shown in Fig. 6J. Regarding the second observation (separation mechanism of the polymeric components), according to the literature, polymeric components of packaging are connected together by adhesive bonds.20 Once the adhesive material was subjected to SHS, the bonds started to weaken and the dissolution

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rate increased rapidly under the effect of heating and sound. Also, it was noted that the sealing layers dissolved completely in SHS since sealing is usually made of PE, which is highly soluble in various solvents as well as ink and paint layers. However, the dissolved ink and paint had a different chemical composition and total amount of printing colors, which makes it difficult to suggest only one model for the separation mechanism.30,37 For example, in some MFPW

samples the SHS dissolved first paint and then printed symbols, while in other samples, dissolution occurred in the opposite order, and in some of the samples dissolution took place for symbols and paint simultaneously, as shown in Fig. 6K–O. It needs to be noted that at the pilot scale, the sequence of separation is not important, especially since the ink and paint were recovered collectively by the developed approach in the form of residue. Finally, Fig. 6P shows the pure re-

covered polymeric films, whereas all the recovered components and layers are analyzed in the following sections.

4.2 Analysis of the barrier layer Fig. 7A1,A 2,B 1 and B2 show SEM images and elemental map analysis of the recovered barrier flakes from the MFPW before (A1) and after (B1) calcination.

As shown in the SEM images (Fig. 7A1 and B1) the recovered flakes had a uniform shape with sharp edges and flat smooth surfaces with an average flake size

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of 100 µm. In addition, the fracture surface of the recovered layers displayed smooth features since the base elements of the layers were ductile materials.38 Also, it was noted that the flakes were contaminated by a small amount of organic materials (indicated by the yellow circles), which were removed after the calcination process. The elemental map analysis showed that Al represented the main element in the recovered flakes except for a few wt. percent of carbon and oxygen produced by organic materials and oxidation; the percentage of these elements decreased significantly after the calcination process. Finally, EDS elemental analysis was used to investigate the purity of the recovered Al flakes for all the MFPW samples, as shown in Fig. 7C. As can be seen, the MFPW samples had a purity in the range 88 –92 wt% (average V90 wt%). As a conclusion, it can be noted that the recovered Al flakes could be used in many applications

related to powder metallurgy, etc.39,40 4.3 Analysis of the recovered outer films 4.3.1 Chemical analysis. FTIR was used to determine the chemical structures and functional groups of the outer polymeric films extracted from the MFPW samples in order to determine the type of recovered polymer. Fig. 8 shows the spectra observed for each treated sample; as a result of the analysis, similar functional groups were found in all the samples, except for the sample MFPW4; for instance, aliphatic C–H stretch at 2750 to 3090 cm−1 and 1470 cm−1,CvO stretch at 1745 cm−1,C –O –C stretch at 1247 and 1022 cm−1. These bands are in accordance with data found in the literature for poly (ethyleneco-vinyl acetate) (EVA), which provides remarkable oil and grease resistance.41 On

the other hand, several different absorption peaks were found in the WPB4 sample, in particular peaks at 1709 cm−1 and 1237 cm−1 ascribed to CvO stretching vibrations and C– O–C vibrations of an ester group, respectively, while another peak at 1091 cm−1 was ascribed to a vC–H– bending group of a benzene ring and the peak near 722 cm−1 is due to the phenyl ring deformation and vibration of a CH2 bending group. These bands are considered the main structure of polyethylene terephthalate (PET);42 the results agree with the data reported in the literature for PET identification.43 4.3.2 Thermal analysis. TGA was employed to investigate the

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thermal behavior of the recovered films and at the same time to confirm the FTIR results. Fig. 9A shows the results of TGA analysis for the recovered films of MFPW samples. As illustrated in the figure, the samples showed only one degradation peak, indicating the presence of a single polymer type in the sample.

Also, the MFPW1,2,3,5,6 samples (EVA films) had the same trend and exhibited similar thermal degradation profiles, demonstrating significant weight loss in the range 420–500 °C. In addition, the thermal stability in terms of weight loss was >98% and these results indicate that the recovered films were composed of EVA.44 At the same time, the MFPW4 sample showed the initial decomposition temperature characteristic for PET at 415 °C and a

degradation temperature at 428 °C. In addition, the thermal stability in terms of weight loss was >97%.

These results are almost identical to the results reported in other literature for pure PET.45 Also, derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) analysis further confirmed the observed polymer decomposition trend with one degradation step, as shown Fig. 9B. Finally, it can be concluded, that these results agree with the above listed FITR results.

ture. To avoid this issue, SEM-EDS was used instead of FTIR analysis. Fig. 10 shows the photos, SEM images, and EDS elemental map analysis of the firstly extracted residue after the filtration and drying of different treated MFPW samples. As shown in the SEM images (Fig. 10A1,B 1 and C1), the extracted residue did not possess a certain shape with spherical particles, flakes, and conglomerates mixed together (Fig. 10E). To better understand the obtained information, EDS and elemental 4.4 Analysis of the extract- map analysis were used to ed residues 4.4.1 First exexamine the chemical comtraction. Due to the extract- position of samples. As ed residue from this step shown in Fig. 10A2, carbon having been presented by a (C), oxygen (O), and calcimixture composed of coat- um (Ca) represented the ing, paint, ink, etc., the main elements for all the FTIR analysis was problem- particles.46 The found C, O, atic to perform with high and Ca are typical elements accuracy for all the individ- for different organic materiual components in the mix-

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als, such as solvents, pigments, dyes, resins, lubricants, solubilizes, surfactants, particulate matter, fluorescents, and other materials, which are considered the main components of inks.47 In addition, metallic elements were found in the sample, mainly titanium (V97 wt%) and Al (V3 wt%) (Fig. 10B2 and C2), which are widely used in ink production as additives applied for coloring and improving the overall appearance of dry ink. Based on the reported composition, the extracted particles were printing inks. 4.4.2 Second extraction. All the paints, inks, coating polymers, etc. were separated during the first extraction, leaving only one type of polymer in the solution, namely the sealing layer. Therefore, it was

easy to analyze the second extraction residue particles after their extraction from the solvent by the addition of distilled water and CO2 at 0 °C. For this purpose, FTIR analysis was performed and clear bands to define the type of extracted polymer were obtained. Fig. 11 shows the spectra observed for the residue particles of all the MFPW samples. FTIR analysis of the samples gave a close view of CH stretching at 3410 cm−1, CH 2 deformations at 1590 cm−1, CH 2 asymmetrical bending at 1457 cm−1, and symmetrical CH2 bending at 1351 cm−1 with an additional peak at 1128 cm−1 that was identical to the FTIR spectra of low-density polyethylene (LDPE).48 However, a few deletions and shifting of

functional group peaks were observed, representing structural changes in the polymer, indicating that the recovered LDPE was partially degraded as a result of breakage of its molecular bonds during the dissolution.49 These results agree with the results in the literature where PE was reported to be widely used for the heat sealing of packaging.32,33 Finally, after extraction of the first and second residue, the spent solution was heated at 40 °C overnight to remove the mixed water as well as CO2. Fig. 12A and B show the photographic images of the regenerated DMCHA after extraction of all the residues and gases by filtration and heating, respectively.

As is evident, the color of the recovered DMCHA

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changed from yellow to the colorless again (original color).

Fig. 12C shows the FTIR spectra of unused and regenerated DMCHA. The results indicate the presence of C–H stretching vibration of saturated hydrocarbon groups in the region of 2936–2776 cm−1,C –H bending vibration of methyl groups at 1446 cm−1, and a stretching vibration of C– N at 1350–1000 cm−1. It was clear that the properties of the initial and recovered DMCHA did not change and the obtained readings were similar to the bands described in the litera-

ture.50 This means that switching the polarity of the solvent by CO2 addition is useful from both the economic and environmental points of consideration. Finally, Table 1 shows all the materials in the extracted residue and films from the packaging as well as the position of each layer in the matrix.

4.5 Efficiency of the new recycling method Table 2 shows the recycling rate of the Al and polymeric layers (EVA, PET, LDPE, etc.) for specific MFPW samples as well as the average recycling rate; the same information is shown for recov-

ered DMCHA. As illustrated, the percentage of Al was in the range 12–17 wt% with an average value of 14.2 wt%. At the same time, the recovered polymeric components, including the coating, outer, and sealing represented 84.3% of the total MFPW mass.

Therefore, the recycling rate of the developed approach was relatively high at >99% (based on mass balance) for all the MFPWs. It is worth mentioning that most of the losses occurred for the polymeric fraction during the filtration process.

The developed technique showed high efficiency in

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the regeneration of DMCHAwith a recycling rate of >98%. This means the present technique has a high performance, >1.5 times higher than that of the other reported techniques used in the EU for packaging waste recycling.1 Based on these results, a green recycling plant was designed, as explained in detail in the following section.

5. Design and description of a green pilot plant for MPFW recycling During the adoption of new

recycling technology, equipment replacement and production readjustment usually results in the loss of a significant amount of resources (equipment, etc.) that were used previously.

To avoid this issue and to achieve the maximum benefit from the old recycling lines as well as to avoid the necessity to dispose of previous generation equipment, the current recycling technologies and separation phases currently used in the EU were studied in order to reuse some of these phases

in the new plant, thus reducing the cost of building a new green plant in the future. The literature review showed that all the typical recycling technologies start directly after the collection process, by transferring the waste to storage, thus beginning the conversion from waste to new raw materials (end-of-waste stage). Also, it was found that recycling using various types of mechanical processing is a common practice in many EU countries, such as Lithuania, Belgium, Estonia, Lat-

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via.17 According to the ECO-oh! recycling company, mechanical waste treatment includes three main stages to obtain the final raw materials in the form of granules: pretreatment, first, and second raw materials preparation. The pretreatment stage starts with a sorting process, shredding to small pieces, rotating drum washing to separate rocks, metals, and glass gravitationally, friction washing using water to remove any organic, cytotoxic and hazardous materials, a grinding process to produce 1–12 mm sized flakes, and a second water friction washing. After this point, float–sink separation is used to separate different polymers based on their specific density, with first and second raw materials prepared from the float and sink fractions as shown in Fig. 13. As illustrated, the float fraction after drying proceeds to a wind sifter separator to remove soft

particles, then melt filtration is done to prepare the polymer for re-granulation.

Similarly, the sink fraction passes through almost the same process to prepare the second raw material but with a little difference: before drying, the magnetic separation is performed to remove the ferrous remains; afterwards the process continues in the same way as for float fraction.

Based on the mechanical plant layout and the sequence of separation by solvent, which was studied in

the present research, and the obtained analysis results, a new green pilot plant for recycling of MPFW was designed, as explained in the following sections.

5.1 Layout of the green pilot plant for MFPW recycling It was suggested building the new plant based on the total number of raw materials recovered at the end of the treatment process; in total, five types of such raw materials can be received: mixed polymeric powder (paint, ink, etc.), EVA films, PET films, PE powder, and

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Al flakes. It worth mentioning that the total number of raw material types recovered through the suggested approach can be higher depending on the structure and total number of layers in the treated packaging waste; in this, case some minor adjustments of the basic layout will be needed.

Fig. 14 shows the suggested layout of the new plant.

As can be seen, the layout begins with a pretreatment process (indicated by violet rectangle) and in this stage, the first four steps (sorting, shredding, rotating drum washing, and friction water washing) are identical to the first steps used in traditional mechanical treatment plants. After that, the main treatment phase using SHS begins with an aim to separate the coating layers (including ink, paint) from the Al flakes and other polymers as well as the adhesive materials (phase is indicated by white rectangle).

Also, this stage includes regeneration of the solvent using a specialized unit (more detail in the following

section). After that, three types of separation units are employed to obtain a complete separation of Al and ink/ paint from the polymeric fraction, starting with centrifugal and filtration separations. After that, a near infrared sorting unit is used to sort the different types of polymer, then each polymer type is processed for re-granulation.

5.2 Efficiency of the suggested layout The performance of recycling technologies can be evaluated through four factors: the recycling rate, resource efficiency (including number and condition of the recovered materials), economic return, and greenhouse gas emissions. Based on the la-

boratory experiments, the recycling rate of the developed technique was >99%, as illustrated in the previous section, while common techniques demonstrate a notably lower rate <66%.1 Regarding the resource efficiency, at least five different raw materials (for instance Al flakes, EVA, PET, PP, PE, PET, PS) can be produced at the end of treatment in a good condition except for mixed polymeric powder (depending on the structure of paint, ink, etc.), which is more preferable than obtaining raw materials produced by traditional technologies, where the re-granulated float and ink polymers have poor compatibility and a

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high degree of thermal degradation, which adversely affects the final performance of the produced materials.51 On the contrary, re-granulated PE, PP, PET, and PS recovered by the present technology can be used in several applications with good performance, and their properties can be further improved through additionally developing the polymer sorting stage.52 Also, the economic performance of the developed technology was evaluated to calculate the benefit of applying this technology at an industrial scale, with the evaluation based on the obtained raw materials. As illustrated before, the recovered polymeric components, including the coating, outer layers, and sealing, represented 84.3% of the total MFPW mass (mixed polymers accounted for V10 wt% of the recovered polymeric components), while Al flakes represented 14.2 wt% of the total MFPW mass. Fig. 15 shows the economic performance of the suggested technology

with regard to the status of the recovered granules (pure or mixed). The power consumption was measured by kilowatt hour meter and was estimated as 264 KW h per ton (calculated based on the dissolution time and dissolution chamber capacity).53 Also, the solvent cost was not taken into account since the solvent in the new recycling system is considered a sustainable material with a regeneration rate >98%. As for the price of the input waste packaging, the average market price was V80 $ per ton.54 The total cost of the recovered materials was estimated to be 2040 $ per ton and the final benefits 1920 $ per ton (2040 $ per ton – 80 $ per ton – 40 $ per ton) (Note that all these prices are commercial prices for recycled materials but not original raw materials). These calculations provide strong evidence that, by applying the developed technology, the profit of recycling can be increased significantly as a result of reprocessing each polymer

type individually while maintaining a low treatment cost due to the sustainable solvent use. Regarding the greenhouse gas emissions (GGEs) during SHS treatment, Samorì et al. (2017) studied the GGEs of the developed system and the results showed that the GGEs decreased significantly compared to traditional techniques.30 In order to avoid the lack of transparency or comprehensiveness in the range of materials considered, Turner et al.

(2015) developed a scientifically robust and fully transparent approach according to the ISO 14040 standard to calculate the CO2 emission factors for the recycling of source-segregated waste materials.55 In the current work, the GGEs of each recovered material were calculated depending on the average values reported in the literature. Table 3 illustrates the average GGE values of the recovered materials (mixed plastics, PET, HDPE, PVC, LDPE, PP, and aluminum foil) based on the results of

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Turner et al. (2015). It is worth mentioning that mixed plastics represent 10 wt%, while other polymeric fraction represents 75 wt%, and aluminum foil represents the remaining 14 wt%. Knowing the weight ratios, the GGE values were determined for each fraction. Based on these calculations, applying the present technology on an industrial scale gives a possibility to decrease GGEs by −2266 kg CO2-eq per t. If compared with GGE reduction rates for other methods from the literature, the final CO2-eq balance of the current technique demonstrated a significant CO2 equivalent emission reduction 4 times higher than in the case of treatment by formic acid (−576.1 kg CO2 eq per t) and 10 times higher in the case of waste pyrolysis (−225.2 kg CO2 eq per t).30 Water is an essential element in the proposed technology and is used to extract polymers from the solution by adding two volumes of water to one volume of solvent at 0 °C, as

mentioned before. According to the optimum separation conditions, one ton of waste packaging requires 2.55 ton of solvent and 6 ton of water. After the extraction process, water should be evaporated to regenerate the spent solvent and then reused. This approach provides sustainability for the solvent but does not grant sustainability for the used water. Therefore, it is highly recommended to use a condenser to reuse water, thus allowing for closed-loop water circulation. Although the solvent system was used before, the study performed by Samori et al. (2017) focused on the separation of packaging waste composed of only two components: lowdensity polyethylene and aluminum (Tetra Pak Packaging), while the present research focused on the separation of packaging waste composed of multiple layers, including other components like paint and ink.

The present research presented the state of the art of the most common pack-

aging structure, which was missing in the literature related to recycling. In addition, the materials recovered by advanced technology cannot be considered as only secondary materials, but as high value-added products (e.g., Al microparticles) that could be used in high-tech applications, thus leading to closing the loop of multilayer waste and achieving the sustainability principles. Based on these results, the suggested treatment can be seen as an environmentally friendly and profitable strategy, which includes measures that will help stimulate Europe’s transition toward a circular economy, boost global competitiveness, foster sustainable economic growth, and generate new working places. Moreover, the present research can be considered one of the first studies seeking to close the loop of the MFPW lifecycle in accordance with the circular economy principles.

6. Conclusion In the present research, the authors presented an inno-

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vative design for green recycling technology for multilayer flexible packaging waste (MFPW) using switchable hydrophilicity solvents and ultrasonic treatment.

The proposed design was chosen based on the results obtained from laboratory experiments conducted to determine the chemical composition of different types of MFPW as well as the optimum separation conditions. The laboratory experiments were successful in sep arating all components of MFPW, which comprised 14.2 wt% Al and an 85.3 wt% polymeric fraction, while a recycling rate >99% was achieved. The Al was recovered in the form of flakes with an average size of 100 µm, which could be used in powder metallurgy applications, while the polymeric components were represented by mixed polymers (ink, paint, adhesive, etc.), EVA films, PE powder, PET films, etc., which could be used for lightweight applications, which combined helps to decrease the CO2eq emissions of the technol-

ogy by −2266 kg CO2-eq per t and achieve the principles of the circular economy while simultaneously maximizing resource efficiency.

According to the suggested design, in total, more than five different raw materials can be received at the end of recycling process in a good condition. The recovered materials can be used in many industries with high performance especially when compared with traditional technologies, which mostly produce three types of raw materials: Al and two types of mixed plastic (float and sink fractions), with limitations related to compatibility and thermal degradation. In addition, the economic return of the new plant was 1920 $ per ton of waste, while the CO2-eq emissions were reduced by up to 10 times in comparison with common technologies, and also low energy consumption was reached.

Based on the abovementioned results, it can be concluded that the implementation of the proposed technology could help

achieve the principles of sustainability and the circular economy and, at the same time, realize the vision of the European Union of creating new technology and new jobs.

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Manage., 2015, 157, 69 – 83. 55 D. A. Turner, I. D. Williams and S. Kemp, Greenhouse gas emission factors for recycling of source-segregated waste materials, Resour., Conserv. Recycl., 2015, 105, 186–197, DOI: 10.1016/ j.resconrec.2015.10.026.

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Cradle to cradle – a tangible vision?

All signs are pointing to higher recycling rates for packaging producers. A smart circular economy is creating new opportunities for the industry. Experts are warning that there might be more plastic than fish swimming in the sea in 2050 – at the moment, 150 million tonnes of plastic are in the world’s oceans.

As Europe’s leading polluter of plastic waste, Germany has particular responsibility to bear. On average, every person in Germany throws away about 220 kg of plastic packaging each year.

China’s ban on imports of certain types of waste, which has been in force since the start of 2018, is placing additional pressure on European manufacturers to cut their packaging waste. Up until that time, the People’s Republic was the biggest buyer of plastic waste – especially from

trade and industry, such as commercial film, production scrap, rigid plastic and big bags – and not only for Germany.

packaging is to rise from 36 per cent today to 63 per cent by 2022. TechBox Forum at this year’s FachPack will address the related challenges in greater detail New packaging legislation in in a series of lectures held Germany that will replace on 27 September 2018. the current Packaging Ordinance beginning in 2019 is also changing these basic conditions. The new law will also boost recycling targets for producers. For instance, the recycling rate for plastic

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So there are compelling reasons for producers to prepare themselves for better recycling strategies. And plastic packagingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poor public reputation is compounding matters.

Public pressure Images of islands of plastic in the oceans and growing environmental awareness among consumers mean

that public calls for a new way of dealing with plastic packaging are becoming louder. The study â&#x20AC;&#x153;Packaging in Focus" carried out by the auditing and consulting firm pwc indicates that 94 per cent of consumers believe that less packaging material could be used in many products.

Some 95 per cent of respondents also advocated reducing the amount of ma-

terial to a minimum. An equally large number of people also called for the use of packaging material that is easy to recycle.

Consumers said that manufacturers (45 per cent) were first and foremost responsible for reducing packaging waste, followed by retailers (22 per cent) and legislators (18 per cent). Just 15 per cent of consumers feel

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that they bear the main responsibility. The proportion of consumers willing to spend more money on more sustainable packaging is therefore low: Only just un-

der a quarter are open to paying higher prices. According to the study, these customers would accept an average mark-up of 16 per cent.

Cradle rather than grave However, a few hurdles stand in the way of practical implementation of a higher recycling rate. For instance, post-consumer waste, such

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as light-weight packaging material that is collected in a yellow bag in Germany, is hard to recycle. In most cases, this material is suitable only for recycling into lower-quality products. One reason for this is that plastic is not designed in accordance with the cradle-tocradle principle but rather as cradle-to-grave products. For instance, composite materials are frequently used that involve a great deal of work to separate. In addition, labels and printing inks too often have a negative impact on material recycled from the ‘yellow bag’.

avoiding the loss of valuable raw materials.

The quality of packaging material could be maintained by using suitable technologies, thus also

No sooner said than done?

Cradle to Cradle e.V., a group whose advisory board includes the pioneer of this design concept Dr Michael Braungart, calls for packaging that can be recycled into high-quality products rather than imposing bans and not using packaging in the first place. "For this to happen, packaging must be designed from the outset so that its components can easily be separated from one another and can be circulated after use in a closed loop," the association urges on its website.

Initiative launched by Werner & Mertz in 2012 advocates meaningful recycling of plastic waste from the ‘yellow bag’. This manufacturer of washing, cleaning and care products under the Frosch brand is now successfully making highquality plastic packaging out of waste plastic from the ‘yellow bag’. These efforts are also focusing on sustainable labels and printing ink.

For instance, the Recyclate

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Ink transfer technology – dot gain and ink film thickness

The issues related to applying uncontrolled ink—In the world of Flexography printing, customers are demanding higher profiled printing while utilizing (4) color process, (7) color HD or expanded color gamut and line work bringing breathtaking life to many packages.

Whether it’s the most complicated process printing job or the simplest line work, controlling the Ink Film Thickness is very critical when it comes to providing a highly repeatable print job.

As a customer, separator or printer, do you find yourself at the supermarket picking up packages and easily identifying dirty print or dot gain issues that are commonly known issues which most printers struggle with?

These issues contribute to many losses for converters such as customer rejections, short stops for cleaning plates, press downtime for remounting plates, wasted time, motion and materials that all impact the bottom line. So, now that

you can relate to these challenges it’s important to ask the question....why?

Your problem could be due to Dot Gain or variation within the Ink Film Thickness

Film Thickness, you start to see a tonal shift in the highlights first causing the dots to get fuzzy and appear much bigger.

Once this phenomenon occurs, it’s more critical than ever to control the amount of ink transfer from anilox DOT GAIN is a phenomenon to plate and plate to subthat causes printed material strate to prevent off color to look darker than what’s material and customer reintended. This happens be- jections that lead to high cause the diameter of the halftone dots increases in size during the printing process.

Between the plate properties and Ink

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dollar claims.

WRONG DOCTOR BLADE TIP CONFIGURATION Ink and the anilox must work together as a team to transfer the correct amount of ink to the plate The doctor blade tip must be matched to the specific anilox line screen in order to maintain the correct ink film thickness.

As a general rule, the smaller the tip thickness (contact area), the cleaner the wipe (less ink film thickness).

As you can see below, the blade tip thickness gets smaller as the anilox line screen gets higher.

If a large tip (say 200 microns) is used on a line screen of 1000, the contact area of the 200 micron tip will be too large; therefore allowing the actual wiping pressure of the tip to be spread out over a broader area.

This results in less actual wiping force and allows a thicker film of ink to transfer to the plate. As a direct

result, this thicker film floods the plate dots and other print areas making the overall appearance to look dirty.

DOCTOR BLADE PRESSURE Affecting the ink film thickness with blade pressure On a CI press, the doctor blade chambers can be controlled by either manual or pneumatic adjustments to increase or decrease blade pressure depending on the circumstance.

Too much pressure on the doctor blade tip causes more contact area on the anilox roll, allowing more ink to transfer onto the

43

plate or screened areas making it difficult to control the optimal ink film thickness.

Often when a new set of doctor blades are installed, the printer forgets or doesn’t understand the importance to back the chamber out to the home position. If he does not do this, it causes the blade to start in a stressed/overpressured position which results in a larger contact and consequently a poor wipe – on a new set of blades. This can also lead to premature doctor blade wear, anilox wear, ink contamination and anilox scoring.

While much of the above can certainly contribute to too much blade pressure, other factors that need to be considered are uncalibrated chambers, worn or broken adjustments and lack of doctor blade training.

ANILOX VOLUME It is commonly known that

anilox cell volume drives the color achieved and a different cell size will change the physical ink film thickness transferred to either darken or lighten the color. So, if the ratio of your plate to anilox LPI aren’t taken into careful consideration (i.e. anilox/ plate 6:1), the anilox cell could be too deep for the dot size and an excessive amount of ink transfers to the plate causing dot bridging and visual dirty print.

Today many companies are spending high dollars on state-of-the-art printing presses, anilox rolls, plate material and inks, often not taking into consideration how much of an impact the doctor blade has and the game changer it provides to improve quality, service and costs. Why trip over dollars to pick up nickels when it

comes to smart investments that more than pay for themselves when it comes to high dollars print quality rejections, loss of productivity stopping to clean plates, wasted material going over impressions and stopping to change inexpensive doctor blades.Much like ink and anilox technology, doctor blade tips are used to provide the cleanest wipe on the metering roll and provide the thinnest ink film thickness to match the signed off predicted proof when the press is set up to those standard conditions every time.

Ask yourself if you are doing the following tasks to providing press side repeatability day after day: » Fin-

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gerprinting your press twice a year » Anilox auditing and cleaning schedule » Operator training » Calibrating press chambers and impression rolls » PM and auditing viscosity controllers If so, using the correct doctor blade and tip configuration is another piece to the puzzle. Precise tips require precise settings. Our goal as a blade supplier is to help you achieve ALL that is required – which includes training, set up assistance, tracking assistance and the right blade choice for the process. Without completing that circle, the optimum results cannot be achieved.

Thin doctor blade tips are necessary to achieve the cleanest wipe on high line anilox rollers. To insure this thin tip gets the longest life possible, a protective coating is often used to insure its durability.

With higher speed presses utilizing quick changeovers, the mileage on a doctor blade is more than two to three times greater than with older, slower presses during that same time

those results that both the frame. printer and customer is As the doctor blade tips wears, consistency is critical thriving to achieve in maintaining the same ink film thickness throughout the blade life. It’s a fine line between getting the blade life, achieving the optimum cleanest wipe without wearing out the anilox. That’s where our new blade technology comes in.

You asked and we listened!

Our concept for the new GAMUTSTAR was designed by all the feedback received from our customers and their challenges. The blade design and multilayered coating allows optimal conditions for ink metering and blade longevity lasting a week plus.

While every printer’s worst nightmare is replacing score lines in their anilox’s, the outer layer on the GAMUTSTAR is coated with our “soft” – “lower friction” material that has been used for many years eradicating anilox score lines.

So, despite the challenges and imperfections of high line anilox engravings, the GAMUTSTAR will provide

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Flexible packaging - perception and reality

A comment by Stefan Glimm, Senior Executive Advisor at Flexible Packaging Europe (FPE) about perception and reality, and wht we should be proud of working in the flexible packaging industry. This article is a summary of the presentation at the DFTA meeting on September 13.

At present, plastic packaging is almost exclusively perceived as a worldwide waste problem hiding its core functionality. And in truth with regards to its end -of-life: the gaps should continue to be closed, including in Europe, but above all in the main polluter countries of Asia.

The much-discussed ‘recycling-friendly design’ as a single solution falls well short of reality, because without collection no recycling can take place.

That's why Flexible Packaging Europe (FPE) has initiated the 'Collect All Packaging' initiative in Europe, which has now gained widespread support in Brussels, as well as establishing 'CEFLEX'.

source-efficient sustainable consumption.

Because it is all about minimizing material losses. Here is a comparison of recycling rates without considering the 'lightness' of the packaging, which is often too short-sighted: a 80% recycling rate of a heavy packaging material means 20% material loss – which can be more in absolute value than the overall quantity of maIn the latter, more than one terial used for an alternative lightweight pack rehundred companies along gardless of its recycling the entire value chain – rate. from the producer of raw materials to branded goods The basic concept of flexible – have come together to packaging is to minimize further close the material cycles for flexible packaging use of different materials to and so expand, even more, achieve maximum performance in total. The resulttheir contribution to re-

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ing 'lightweight packaging' will also serve protect the important resources needed to produce food, with only very limited resource consumption (on average, flexible packaging representing less than 10% of the overall use of resources for a food product throughout its lifecycle).

Almost a third of the food produced worldwide spoils and never reaches the consumer's plate, both in developing and industrialized countries, albeit for different reasons. This resource loss corresponds to the acreage of a country larger than China â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and adds up to be the third-largest car-

bon producer worldwide, behind the USA and China.

The fact remains: a plastic film around a cucumber initially increases, for example, the carbon cost of producing the packaging. But in retail the loss of cucumbers is reduced by half, according to a study from Austria, which leads to significant overall carbon savings.

efficient packaging solutions.

The overriding task remains the resource-efficient supply, to a growing world population with constantly increasing life expectancy, of safe and hygienic foodstuffs. This must be combined with the minimization of material losses â&#x20AC;&#x201C; through the reduction of the materials used, as well as through Perceptions often neglect collection and recycling. that sustained population growth, combined with ever Lightweight and flexible -increasing life expectancy packaging are all part of a and high hygiene standards resource-efficient solution. in respect to the provision of food, beverages and medicines, cannot be represented without resource-

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Investment opens up whole new possibilities The market is dynamic. For business sustainability today, there is a need to follow trends, get rid of primordial techniques and work on growth and development. Vetas, a small shopping bag producer based in greater Istanbul had recently created a whole new possibility for her establishment by investing in her first state-of-the-art flexo press, an Uteco Onyx. The Onyx Flexographic Printing Press is not only aimed to improve the quality of work, enhance workers capability and boost production; but also to open up novel markets like food packaging.

Vetas has been in existence for over 25 years but established its base in 2001 in Istanbul, providing packaging materials for the market. The company is owned by two partners and currently has over 80 employees. As an institution aimed at maintaining relationships with its consumers, as well as striving to continually push boundaries in quality, through ongoing innovation the company had created a mechanism through merging years of capabilities in the packaging industry.

rials for production. Over the years, it has specialized in producing packages of the printed and plain category on polyethylene film,

garment covers, shrink rolls, stretch films, and a number of bag materials among others.

Vetas manufactures bags, sacks and rolls made from HDPE, MDPE, LDPE, CPP, OPP and PP materials. The company uses virgin mate-

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The target markets for Vetas products are the textile market, the industrial market and the food market as well as the merchandising industry. In recent times, the company expanded and began production of food packaging. The target market for Vetas is primarily the local communityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;about 30% to be precise.

Positive results have been noted over the years as Vetas has grown through innovation. It extrudes around 1000 tons of output a month, leading to average returns of approximately â&#x201A;Ź12 million annually.

Progression is a process of moving ahead with trends and innovation. Vetas planned on growth and, therefore, needed to create a new market opportunity and make relevant changes to meet up with the trends.

As a renowned establishment, it needed a more exposed environment as well as purchasing modern machines as most of the current machinery was of very

simple design. Those machines are still very capable when it comes to producing shopping bags, but the food packaging industry is much more demanding.

The main challenge faced

by Vetas was with their printing presses. The machines formally used by Vetas for printing were made up of six printing stations. Additionally, the machines were gear driven. They were still good enough for some basic jobs but, as the demand on high quality grew, it was clear that Vetas had to invest in topof-the-line flexo printing presses. Previously, when printing cer-

tain sensitive jobs, the gear lines on the print would show. Likewise, there were variations in colors when printing repeat jobs. In other words, it was not possible to have the same print (color) on materials three months later after the initial printâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the repeatability of gear driven flexo presses

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just wouldn’t allow this.

Clearly, the food packaging market Vetas wanted to enter is far more demanding than shopping bags.

First investment in a state-of-the-art machine In order to produce highquality food packaging, Vetas observed the market to find a press that met with their demands and was already well established in the food packaging printing market. They decided on the Uteco Onyx, which, according to the Italian machinery manufacturer, is the best-selling flexo press worldwide. For Vetas, it ticked all the right boxes.

minutes while the older machines took up to two hours to carry out the same task.

The increase in productivity is enormous; therefore, the Onyx almost pays for itself.”

The representative added: “It is vital to consider the quality of a product when making a purchase. It is also important to consider the price. Aside from being an incredibly high-grade machine, the Uteco Onyx offered the best bang for your

buck when compared other brands with similar features or attachments. It also comes with a number of unique features that enhance the company’s productivity, giving the establishment value for money.”

The Uteco Onyx Vetas purchased the 808 version with 8 colors and a max print repeat of 800 mm, with a top speed of up to 400 m/min.

Compared to the old geardriven machinery, the Onyx offers tremendous advantages. From automatic setup of print jobs to reduction of makeready waste and time savings, the machine delivers. As stated by a Vetas representative, changing the printing plates is now as easy as it gets. “It only takes around five

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The Onyx central impression flexographic printing press represents Utecoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s state of the art offering to the printing industry.

Equipped with Direct Drive Evo Technology, it features incredibly high print quality, easy operation and extremely fast job changes.

To ensure optimum printing dot quality, Uteco developed Direct Drive Evo Technologyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;patent protected, direct drive technology. The CI drum and the plate sleeve mandrels are flanged directly into their drive motors ensuring that dot quality is not compromised.

PCT and PTC technologies are used to enhance print operation during press operation. The new Onyx series of presses feature Utecoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest hardware and software developments that automatically set print register and printing pressures at job start reducing both waste and changeover times, ensuring optimum press performance and maximum return on investment.

Vetas is very satisfied with the new Onyx flexo press.

The press enabled Vetas to enter a new and more profitable market, as well as offer a higher print quality to their existing shopping bag customers. Slowly, but steadily, the company will phase out its existing gear driven six color flexo presses, and replace them with Uteco eight color servodriven presses after the positive experience from the first investment in a state-of-the-art flexo press.

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Market demand exposes novel ideas and expansion

As the market is constantly changing, prospective customers determine what is needed. Today, business sustainability is solely dependent on market demands and the market is made up of the customers. Therefore, a serious-minded establishment must tail after trends, get rid of primitive skills and learn new and creative ways for their growth and development. Desen Etiket, a renowned label manufacturer located in Ankara, Turkey, started out as a very small label printing establishment. Today, due to customer demand and its success in food packaging, Desen Etiket was â&#x20AC;&#x153;forcedâ&#x20AC;? to invest in a flexo press: the Soma Optimaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the first of its kind in Turkey.

Desen Etiket is a privately-

company brands. Some of

experienced personnel. To-

owned company established the labels it produces range day, it boasts over 60 employees, each with years of

in the year 1984 as an off-

from food and beverage la-

set printing company. It

bels, pharmaceutical labels, experience and enjoys re-

was established to work pri- household chemical labels,

turns of over $8 million an-

marily on offset for the la-

industrial labels and cos-

nually from a wide range of

bels and packaging of

metic labels to name but a

productions.

books. It also involves

few. Desen is now a major

graphic design works to

leather label producer in

In 2002, Desen decided to

complement its label and

Turkey.

invest in serviette label

packaging contracts.

printing and procured the

Generally, Desen deals with Desen Etiket is an estab-

Mark Andy printing press.

the production of labels for

lishment made up of highly

In that same year, the

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printing press ma- observation, they

Turkey is driven

chine was used to decided to opt for

mostly by the

execute around

the Soma brand.

3000 jobs using

They not only pur-

the 8-color narrow chased the Soma

Middle East.

The major chal-

web flexographic

Optima Flexo-

lenge faced by

printing press.

graphic printing

Desen is the per-

press but also So- ception of their In 2014, the need ma slitter rewind- customers on the for a flexible

ers, plate mount-

machine types.

packaging set in

ers and lamina-

Though there are

and Desen invest- tors.

several options to

ed in a new ma-

choose from,

chine. When con-

The majority of

some will opt for

sidering the mar-

the production of

particular machine

ket conditions,

Desen is for do-

brands or older

customer de-

mestic consump-

machinesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and it

mands and rec-

tion while the rest will not always

ommendations,

(around 25% or

ensure excellent

Desen decided to

30%) is created

results. As the

invest in another

for the Middle

customer is al-

flexographic

East and Russia.

ways right, the

press. Based on in The force of the -depth study and

market outside

only thing to do is to find out ways

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to persuade every customer Desen explained: “I ask

beautiful butterflies.”

to opt for newer and ad-

myself, what can they do

vanced machines to guar-

for me?” As the question

antee superior and con-

was answered appropriately ny examined the Soma

sistent results. Further-

by Soma, Desen decided to

brand. The company noted

more, Desen intends on

opt for its brands. It was

that the proposed machine

moving into the bag and

also a good reference for

had successfully printed

pouch industry making

Soma for the Turkish mar-

several good jobs. In Tur-

someday; however, due to

ket.

key, however, Soma wasn’t

Desen label printing compa-

unavailability of customers,

established. Therefore,

they have to keep it on hold “There are beautiful flow-

Desen saw an opportunity

ers; there are horrible flow- as being the first establish-

for the time being.

Why Soma?

ers. Even poorly colored

ment in Turkey to purchase

flower[s] will call out for

a Soma machine.

When looking for a suitable flexographic printing press for the industry, Desen had to compare several alternatives. The company endeavored to assess their printing quality as well as the prices attached to them.

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The Soma Optima Flexo-

tima printing press is an ex- able to invest in a rotogra-

graphic printing press is an

tremely effective machine

vure printing machines from

fast and well equipped

for a very attractive price

Kohli. â&#x20AC;&#x153;For market expan-

printing machine. Though

that delivers jobs on time,

sion, Desen Etiket decided

the speed is a dependent

every time. It comprises

to tap into another oppor-

factor of the nature of the

speedy job-changing fea-

tunity; therefore, had to in-

job as well as the number

tures, printing consistency

vest in Rotogravure

of colors, it is very fast. It

and also noticeably reduces (gravure). In Turkey, some

can produce a work output

running costs. It runs at a

customers only request the

of around 400 meters per

speed of over 300 meters

Rotogravure. As the gra-

minute at its top speed and per minute. It is made up of vure printing market (cold around 200 meters per mi-

a number of special fea-

seals, malt varnish and oth-

nute at its lowest speed.

tures such as the sleeve

er surface packaging) is in-

The machine is designed to

push-off device, the auto-

creasingly growing rapidly,

tackle heavy-duty jobs.

matic CI drum cleaning de-

Desen decided on investing

Desen opines that, during

vice, the shaftless non-stop in the gravure press.â&#x20AC;?

usage, it is capable of run-

flying splice and the Q-

ning three shifts every day

shield among others.

except Sundays. Furthermore, technical know-how

The Soma Optima Flexo-

for the machines is availa-

graphic printing press has

ble in Turkey.

created a whole new opportunity for Desen Etiket. Fur-

In summary, the Soma Op- thermore, Desen has been

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