One year ago, Hamilton, Ohio-based Imflux Inc. announced plans to outsource its retrofit business for a low constant pressure injection process that molds products with a wide range of materials using less energy.
The subsidiary of Procter & Gamble also said it would move from partnership programs with new machine builders to providing royalty-free access to Imflux technology for their equipment.
Since then, Imflux has partnered with one of its longtime suppliers, Advanced System Integration & Control, to outsource the retrofit business, according to Chief Technology Officer Gene Altonen.
"We also incorporated our technical team into Procter & Gamble's R&D organization and launched our royalty-free program at Fakuma in October 2023," Altonen said. "This program is off to a fast start, and we are very pleased with the response and pace of machine maker participation in the program."
The Imflux process, which is the opposite to conventional high-pressure, fast-fill injection molding, offers lower shear rates and expanded capability to run post-consumer resin.
With the increased focus on sustainability challenges, such as running post-consumer materials, reducing carbon footprint and using less material, Altonen sees big opportunity for the low-pressure process.
"Imflux provides meaningful and measurable advantages across these areas," Altonen said. "We want to keep getting the word out and partner with leading machine makers, processors, mold makers and other industry providers to make Imflux as broadly available as possible."
Altonen told staff writer Catherine Kavanaugh more about those efforts.
Q: Is the technology part of any exhibits at NPE2024?
Altonen: The technology will be demonstrated live in the JSW booth (W1561), and companies such as Moldex3D, Stackteck and PureCycle will have informational materials to share regarding their respective areas of Imflux applications expertise.
Q: Is P&G doing anything new with the Imflux technology?
Altonen: Absolutely. Imflux has been in use in our fabric care, home care and beauty care businesses for some time. As the need to incorporate [post-consumer] PCR materials has become an important tool to achieve our corporate 2030 goals, we plan to expand the use of Imflux across more of our injection molding applications.
Q: Where is Imflux Inc. at in the transition to provide royalty-free access to its patent portfolio and proprietary know-how?
Altonen: We have several leading machine makers already participating in the program, and we are in discussions with several others to join. Our initial focus is on machine makers that have a heavy presence in our vertically integrated businesses as well as with our leading contract molding partners.
As I mentioned, we introduced the program just over six months ago, and we are very pleased with the adoption rate so far.
Q: Has the change to royalty-free access led to more talks or partnerships with machine builders considering the technology as a software feature?
Altonen: Yes, it has. We are strongly supportive of this approach, as it leads to a more streamlined integration of the Imflux technology and more closely matches how machine makers take control innovation to the market.
We also believe that this offers the most robust opportunity to further innovate with the technology and maximizes their flexibility in how they best meet the needs of their customer base.
Q: Is the company partnering with any more machine builders? How many partners are there so far?
Altonen: We continue to partner — via ASIC — with more than 20 machine makers in our outsourced retrofit business, and we have another 10 machine makers either already participating in or actively evaluating our royalty-free program.
We expect to grow the program to include all machine makers that are interested. However, as I mentioned, we are focusing first on those OEMs that have a heavy presence in our P&G molding and molding partner operations.
Q: Do the Underwriters Laboratory results, which say Imflux can run +/-50 percent variation in viscosity, reduce energy consumption by 15 percent and reduce part weight by 4 percent, resonate much with processors? What's your message to them?
Altonen: The short answer is yes: Our validated claim through UL carries a lot of weight with processors. Over the years, there have been many technologies that make performance claims but lack the validation data. Imflux provides very substantial adaptive, energy reduction and part weight reduction benefits, and we wanted to leave no question that these claims are backed by strong scientific methods and data.
Q: What's the holdup/challenge for processors to use low constant pressure to mold quality products with less energy?
Altonen: Fully achieving wide use of the technology will require scale in the industry. Our continuing retrofit business model is effective but difficult to scale to the level necessary to create critical mass in the industry. This is why we added a royalty-free option for the machine makers, who we believe are better positioned to scale the technology and meet the needs of processors, including P&G.
Q: How do you feel about goals to process more post-consumer resins? Is progress being made? Is it going in a lot of directions?
Altonen: Like many companies, P&G has aggressive future sustainability goals, and post-consumer resin use is a primary enabler. This is an important reason why we are working to make Imflux broadly available for use by P&G and the broader industry. The technology effectively manages the highly variable rheology of post-consumer resins.
A key challenge I observe is the desire of processors to hold post-consumer resin suppliers to narrow rheology standards similar to virgin resins. Standard processing techniques struggle to make good parts when running materials with highly variable rheology. It is very challenging, if not impossible, to maintain tight rheology specifications for post-consumer resin. We believe a better approach is to use adaptive technologies like Imflux to manage the variation and enable high-quality part production.
Q: Are you optimistic the so-called Green Curve will catch on? Do you still think Imflux is what's needed for a sustainable plastics industry?
Altonen: I have never been more optimistic about the Green Curve catching on. Our business model pivot to make Imflux available royalty-free is designed to reduce barriers for machine makers and processors to adopt the technology — and we are seeing strong progress.
Q: How big is the Imflux team now?
Altonen: As part of our business model pivot, we maintained a small, focused team of process, controls and equipment experts. We have coupled this with our relationship with ASIC and our external provider network to continue supporting the retrofit business and our expansion into our royalty-free model.
Our integration into broader P&G has also unlocked its world-class capabilities to support Imflux. Net, the total team dedicated to Imflux is reduced, but our capabilities to drive adoption of the technology have multiplied.