Newsletter N°4/2009 - blowing solutions

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Are you seeking for innovative solutions in the blowing of plastic containers?

The versatility of SR series' rotary stretch-blow moulders offered by SMI assures remarkable performances in the blowing of PET and PP bottles, used in the "food & beverage" sector, as well as for detergents, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and chemicals.

Thanks to high-tech components, reduced maintenance operation costs and an excellent quality/price ratio, the SR series is the ideal solution for the production of plastic containers of different capacities, featuring various shapes, from the most simple to the most sophisticated ones.

SMI stretch-blow moulders allows to alternate the blowing of PET and PP containers without  any change in the machine configuration, assuring to the end user optimized productions with minimized running costs.

Currently, PP polymers can be employed in the stretch-blow moulding process to manufacture different sizes of containers, thanks to their good transparency and shine, low permeability to H2O, excellent heat and sterilization resistance.

The advantage of using PP bottles is even higher if containers are made through stretch-blow moulding rather than extrusion.

The stretch-blow moulding of PP containers assures:

- higher hourly production rate per cavity;
- lower investments for equipment purchase in the beginning, since only two machines are required: a preform-making press and a stretch-blow moulder. The extrusion process, by contrast, requires more machines.
- lower energy costs, thanks to the shorter pre-heating time (5 min. max);
- easy and fast format change operations; hence, higher machine flexibility;
- 33% lighter container compared to the extrusion process;
- mechanical properties of PP containers similar to those made of PET;
- enhanced container properties, thanks to the excellent drop resistance, good rigidity, high resistance to hot filling, high trasparency and brightness and low wear and tear of the moulds.

By virtue of recent technical developments in the resin production, also pharmaceutical and beverage industries could take advantage of using PP polymers as an alternative to PET. Moreover, companies operating in the food & beverage sector, for which high barrier to oxygen is not required, could propose healthier beverages, since the use of preservatises can be dramatically reduced.

Marketing Department
SMI S.p.A.
E-mail: info@smigroup.it
www.smigroup.it