Milliken Selects Battenfeld Gloucester's Process Development Center for Advanced Material Trials

Milliken & Company recently took advantage of the Battenfeld Gloucester Engineering Process Development Center by completing two sets of successful trials using the Battenfeld Gloucester's laboratory 3- and 7-layer blown film lines. The trials were intended to show the effect on the optical, physical and process properties of polyethylene film when incorporating the use of a new nucleating agent, Hyperform HPN-20E. Battenfeld Gloucester offers a state of the art, industrial scale lab for the development, troubleshooting, and fine tuning of film and sheet extrusion applications. Installed in the Gloucester, MA, headquarters, the versatile lab equipment coupled with in-house expertise helps customers optimize their equipment investment and explore new markets. Milliken & Company, located in Spartanburg, SC, is one of the largest privately held textiles and chemical manufactures in the world and is widely acknowledged as an international leader in research technology, innovation, and customer service. Battenfeld Gloucester's long standing relationship with Milliken is due in part to the companies' similar strategy and technology focus on improved processing, end product quality and continuous search for solutions and applications that help their customers to be successful. Hyperform HPN-20E is a new additive chemistry from Milliken that enables innovations in polyolefin flexible packaging. The nucleator was developed as part of a series of R&D initiatives designed to create new technologies for enhancing the performance and value of polyethylene. Hyperform HPN-20E represents Milliken's entry into the polyethylene market after more than two decades of creating industry-leading additives for polypropylene. Suggested applications for films nucleated with HPN-20E are shrink film, food packaging, stretch hood film, greenhouse film, and overwrap. LLDPE films containing Milliken's HPN-20E produced at Battenfeld Gloucester's Process Development Center during these trials showed enhanced shelf appeal through 40% haze reduction and a two-fold increase in gloss compared to the unnucleated LLDPE. Other advantages included maintained dart impact, a 30% increase in MD tear, and a 20% improvement in stiffness compared to common LLDPE blends with LDPE. Decreased crystallization half time, driven by nucleation also enabled line speed to increase by 7%. Increased productivity combined with potential down gauging obtained from improved physical properties can lead to reduced manufacturing costs. The trials also demonstrated that nucleation with HPN-20E provides quality improvements in films such as reduced streaking and inconsistencies. "Battenfeld-Gloucester has been an excellent resource for Milliken while we were developing this additive," said Heather Dolan, Business Development Manager. "Their processing and market knowledge were tremendously valuable to us." The high technology setting of Battenfeld Gloucester's Process Development Center and the precise process control allowed Milliken to test the new additives and their performance not only in monolayer but also in coextruded structures including 3, 5 and 7 layers. For this type of trials, Battenfeld Gloucester's low profile blown film dies with minimum polymer residence time are ideal because they facilitate quick changes for different materials evaluation. The low friction and airboard collapsing frames help to maintain a great film surface quality, maintaining the excellent optical properties obtained by the combination of materials and processing conditions. A set of samples from Battenfeld Gloucester's 7-layer blown film line were prepared to review the improvement in clarity in high barrier structures, traditionally not optimal in optical properties. Samples and discussion of the results which were available at the recently concluded NPE in Chicago at the companies' booth in McCormick Place South Hall - Battenfeld Gloucester (#2515) and Milliken (#3018),generated huge interest.