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In a breakthrough development, a fully recyclable mono-material PE pouch has been created thanks to the effective value chain collaboration of ExxonMobil, Henkel, Kraus Folie, Siegwerk, and Windmöller & Hölscher. The pouch features a high oxygen barrier, outstanding package integrity, and excellent shelf-appeal, and it produces an almost colorless recyclate after the removal of printing ink.
In order to produce the colorless recyclate, Siegwerk’s delamination/deinking primer technology, CIRKIT® ClearPrime, was applied on a Windmöller & Hölscher MIRAFLEX, a flexo printing press with a downstream unit.
The high oxygen barrier was achieved with the use of Loctite® Liofol BC 1582 RE, a recently introduced 1-component barrier coating from Henkel, and CIRKIT® OxyBar BC 1582 from Siegwerk. The coating can be applied on both flexo and gravure presses at industrial machine speeds on various substrates. Its recyclability has been confirmed by Cyclos HTP and it also meets Critical Guidance by the Association of Plastic Recyclers.
Henkel also contributed its new solvent-free, 2-component polyurethane laminating adhesive, LOCTITE® LIOFOL LA 7102 RE / 6902 RE, to the pouch. The system has been designed specifically for mono-material structures and was certified as recyclable by RecyClass.
Using ExxonMobil’s latest generation of performance polyethylene such as Exceed™ S and Exceed™ XP, in combination with Exact™ materials in the sealant layer, outstanding packaging integrity was achieved. The MDO-PE films had been developed by ExxonMobil and Kraus Folie, employing ExxonMobil HDPE and Enable™ performance polyethylene, and produced on their VAREX extrusion line with inline MDO unit.
To learn more about the companies involved in this collaboration, please visit the following websites:
