The process of manufacturing barrier plastic bottles using coating technology has shown a downward trend, with Krones AG in Germany and Tetra Pak in the United States (Illinois) starting to reduce production scale. Krones and Coca Cola have jointly developed BestPET technology to coat the outer surface of bottles with a coating containing silicon oxide. A spokesperson for the company claimed that due to high costs and insufficient oxygen barrier performance, this technology is outdated. Tetra Pak has also terminated research on the Glaskin silica plasma coating system applied to the inner wall of PET bottles.
In addition, Italian SIPA company has developed a new type of barrier coating material specifically for PEN bottles, with the trade name Smart Coat. The process flow is: after the bottle is blown and processed, it undergoes the coating process, and then immediately placed in an infrared oven to quickly dry the bottle. After a second coating, the bottle is then cured under ultraviolet radiation. A standard coating device can process approximately 12000 plastic bottles per hour. One of the application goals of this PET bottle is to fill carbonated beverages. According to the company, a 0.5 liter capacity, single purpose dipped PET bottle can have a shelf life of up to one year for packaged goods, while non dipped PET bottles have a shelf life of only 7 weeks.
AFT has developed a patented water-based flow coating process that can coat the outer surface of a special barrier thermoplastic resin bottle preform. After the coating process, the resin solidifies and the bottle preform can be stretched and blown twice on standard processing equipment. APT claims that using this coating process can improve CO barrier performance by 3-4 times compared to uncoated PET bottles. Hesky is negotiating with APT to transfer technology to obtain a business license to manufacture this coating equipment, with a designed production capacity of 30000 preforms per hour. APT Director Robert. Li said. This technology has been purchased by a leading beverage manufacturer and applied to the processing of non alcoholic beverage packaging bottles.
The Institute of Plastic Processing at the University of Aachen in Germany (IKV) has transferred its developed plasma coating technology for the inner wall of plastic bottles, PECVD, to Sidel. IKV has also developed a coating technology for the outer wall of plastic bottles, using a barrier coating of 20-150nm, similar to the inner wall coating process, which can improve the CO barrier performance of PET bottles by four times. The processing cycle of its production system device is 15 seconds, The development goal set by the researchers is to reduce the processing cycle to within 10 seconds, apply more powerful vacuum pumps, and other improved detection devices.
