Nordson's melt filter boosts blown film sustainability

Orlando, Fla. — Nordson Corp. is helping film and sheet producers use more recycled materials through a new product launched at NPE2024 in Orlando.

The BKG HiCon K-SWE-HD/RS melt filter is aimed at recycled content. Nordson also introduced the EDI Prodigi automated lip adjustment system for EDI extrusion and fluid coating dies.

The show was a great chance for the company to tap into new accounts and showcase its product development.

"The quality of the individuals that are coming through is extremely high," Kelly Harings, senior manager of commercial sales and marketing at Nordson, told Sustainable Plastics, a sister publication of Plastics News. "We had very high expectations of this show because it hasn't happened in six years. We thought that there would be a higher number of attendees, but with the quality of the visitors that is coming through, I could say that this show has met our expectations.

"We're engaging with a lot of customers that we talk [to but] typically don't get a lot of face time with. As we go into some of our new product development, we're getting customers in that typically didn't buy our technology before. Norton is a very research and development-focused company — the two products that we have developed aim to serve the needs of those customers that are coming in."

Nordson's new melt filter helps blown film producers boost their sustainability credentials by allowing them to use more recycled content.

"A lot of filtration in existing blown film lines is mainly there to catch gels that form during the extrusion process. As we're seeing more [post-consumer recycled material] get added into the blown film products, screens are getting clogged with the contaminants that are still in the material. So a lot of our customers are having to shut their lines down more frequently in order to change their screens," said Damon Patton, business development manager at Nordson.

"Our unit works continuously, so you're able to continue making products while changing screens. There are two filter elements in the unit. One can be taken offline for that screen to be changed. When it is put back online, the second filter can then be taken offline, changed and put back into service, all while the line is continuing to run."

Nordson's early studies have found that the new melt filter has led to production increases of 8-9 percent, just from not having to shut the line down for screen changes. The filter also features Nordson's backflush technology, which increases its ability to process recycled material.

"When we see that there's a high differential pressure across the filter, we can move one piston to an offline position, route some polymer that's been through the other filter, have it flow upstream, push any contaminants that are on that screen off, and remove that material from the process," Patton explained.

To cope with the high process pressures especially in blown film applications, the BKG HiCon K-SWE-HD/RS melt filter is equipped with a patented melt-pressure controlled venting start that fully automizes the filling of the screen cavity after a screen change for maximum pressure consistency. Additionally, the filling is done carefully so that no air entrapments endanger the process or the end product.

The filtration system was developed as a response to demand coming mainly from Europe, Patton said, where there's been a big push to increase the share of recycled content in plastics, with legislation like the Single-Use Plastics Directive and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive.

The interest in the U.S. is now also very high, Patton revealed, adding he received very positive feedback after debuting the technology to the North American market at NPE.

Nordson is also showcasing the new EDI Prodigi motorized lip actuator system, which fully automates the lip gap adjustment — making it faster, safer and repeatable. The company said the new patent-pending system achieves saving tolerances four times faster than conventional thermal bolt systems, supporting the processor's need for increased sustainability.

The system has seen a "significant amount of success," Harings said. Nordson already sold a dozen systems, with several installations currently taking place and scheduled for commissioning in the next couple of months.

A key factor in that success has been the system's potential to address labor shortages.

"If you look at the plastics industry, that workforce is aging. You've got a lot of highly skilled operators that will be retiring over the next couple of years. This product really takes away that operator intervention and takes that skill and puts it more into the computers and all the software where it's making the corrections to get a uniform flat gauge film or sheet," Harings explained.

Nordson's clients have been emphasizing the concern that a tremendous amount of skilled labor is needed to get a good flat film or sheet. The process takes a lot of manual interventions, with operators having to do a lot of adjustments. For a 120-inch die, for example, it can take around 15-20 minutes to complete all the lip adjustments manually before automatic profile control can be turned on.

"With Prodigi, the moment that you're up and running and the extruders are stabilized, you can turn on the system along with the gauging system, and it starts making corrections immediately. So we've really taken that time to get on to good gauge from, say, 20-25 minutes, to about 3.5 minutes for the first time you are running the campaign. Once you've successfully run that campaign, you can save the recipe, and then you're on gauge typically within about 35 seconds," Harings added.

Another win for sustainability of the Prodigi system is its high energy efficiency. Its motorized actuators operate at a significantly lower temperature than thermal bolts. While the thermal bolts need constant heat during a production run, the motorized lip actuator uses little to no power after achieving steady state operation, reducing overall energy consumption and environmental impact.

Projections show that under normal use the Prodigi actuator system would consume less than 1 percent of the electricity needed annually to operate a comparable thermal die bolt system.