Saturday 25 October 2008

Bag-in-Bottle

Gaplast GmbH replaces a four-part production process with the one-piece AirLEssMotion Bag-in-Bottle System. The new co-extruded, blow moulded bottle consists of a rigid PP outer bottle and a flexible DuPont Surlyn inner bottle.

When an unnamed customer of Gaplast GmbH recently built a new factory, the company also decided to install a more efficient production process for its spray bottles with disinfectant. The existing 1 ltr bottles used for disinfecting laboratories and operating rooms required a four-step manufacturing process and a manual assembly. The bottles were HPDE extrusion blow moulded. A separate foil bag had to be fumbled into the bottles manually to guarantee the airless dispensing function, which is needed to ensure that germs or micro-organisms are not dispensed together with the disinfectant liquid. A connector and a gasket, manufactured by injection moulding, respectively, had to be welded to the foil bag to provide a sealing for the gasket.

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Gaplast GmbH replaced the existing four parts from the old packinging by the one-piece AirLEssMotion Bag-in-Bottle System. The new co-extruded, blow moulded bottle consists of a rigid outside PP bottle and a flexible DuPont Surlyn inner bag. The old flexible inner bag was made from a polymer alloy of two different polymers. As the polymer alloy would stick to the PP wall of the outer bottle, a separation layer would have been necessary in the new bottle. Gaplast GmbH replaced the polymer alloy with a DuPont Surlyn bag.
However, when the dispenser was activated, the vacuum created by the dispensing pump turned out to be not enough to separate the Surlyn inner bag from the PP wall of the outer bottle. In order to solve this problem Gaplast GmbH made two ventilation holes in the outer bottle without punching the inner bag. These two holes ensure the inner bag to collaps once the dispenser is activated. Delamination of the inner bag from the wall of the outer bottle guarantees a constant dosage of the trigger pump. The airless technology and the gamma sterilization after filling eliminate the need of preservatives.

In addition to savings on raw materials, the new packaging also simplifies an efficient waste control, when removed, as bottle and bag belong the same polymer family.
The bag-in-bottle packaging received the prestigious 2008 Dupont Award.

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© Weslley Murylo de Souza Steeman

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