CHICAGO - The Center for Processing Plastic Packaging will begin its first multiclient study this month on the use of post-consumer PET bottles for multilayer thermoformed packaging. Richard Freundlich, the center's director, told attendees at Future-Pak '95 in Chicago the study is aimed at defining and understanding the coextrusion and forming process for amorphous PET sheet as it relates to sourcing, quality, consistency and the use of post-consumer bottles for the core layers. The center is part of the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Center for Manufacturing of Newark.
``We hope to gain information that can be used for a database for defining specific equipment requirements and commercial manufacturing systems,'' Freund-lich said. ``We will focus on the use of APET in the core layer with layers of virgin PET on either side.''
The center was formed last year as a resource for companies interested in researching packaging materials.
It also is studying ``smart'' processing techniques for plastic packaging, vented barrel extrusion, foamed packaging for weight and cost reduction, crystalization of PET during injection molding, multilayer and blended structures for improved barrier properties, reactive extrusion, scrapless forming and microporous films.
Most of the studies will be done in conjunction with the Plastics Processing Institute at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.
