Dow And Nordmeccanica Partner on Breakthrough Lamination Technology
Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics (Midland, MI) and Nordmeccanica S.p.A. (Piacenza, Italy) are collaborating on a lamination technology, using both adhesive and machinery hardware advancements. The technology, which was announced this week at the Drupa show in Dusseldorf, Germany, is a combination of Dow’s Symbiex solventless adhesives and Nordmeccanica’s Duplex SL One ShotT lamination line. The joint venture redefines packaging lamination, offering converters best-in-class conversion efficiency improvements, shorter time-to-market and total conversion cost reductions.
“We are excited to launch this breakthrough technology at Drupa, just 18 months after the signing of the joint development agreement with Nordmeccanica,” said Greg Bunker, Global Business Director for Dow Adhesives for Packaging, Textiles and Hygiene, “By combining Dow’s adhesive development know-how with Nordmeccanica’s machine pioneering, we succeeded in introducing the biggest innovation in packaging lamination in 50 years.”
Unlike conventional lamination lines, the Duplex SL One ShotT laminator offers a unique system to handle the solventless lamination process, enabling the two adhesive components to come into contact as late as possible in the lamination process.
With two independent high-precision coating stations, the two films are pressed together only in the lamination nip station where the curing of the adhesive takes place. This process eliminates the need of a mixing unit and any pot life concerns, and offers reduced line downtime and easy cleaning.
“Dow and Nordmeccanica worked together to reimagine the current conventional lamination process and address some of its fundamental limitations, namely combining fast curing, which requires a fast-acting adhesive, with outstanding pot life, which requires a slower-acting adhesive,” added Vincenzo Cerciello, VP Technology at Nordmeccanica Group, “With Symbiex and the Duplex SL One ShotT laminator, we are able to slit just 90 minutes after lamination compared to today’s 24 hour standard. This is an exciting development and game changing innovation for the lamination adhesives market.”
