LyondellBasell resin removes hot melt adhesive sealing requirement

The firm said Toppyl RC3000 provides a strong seal to keep foods fresh and solves the problem of hot melt adhesives making opening packages difficult.

Andreas Anker, senior manager, LyondellBasell marketing communications, told FoodProductionDaily.com at K Show that it remains easy to open and close during a products life span.

“In contrast to standard packaging solutions it has a very strong adhesive bond without using any hot melt adhesives and the open and close mechanism is basically working for 10 times or even more to protect food items such as fruit, fish, meats, so you can open and close packages made out of that material for a very long time and the content stays fresh like it is sealed.​

“The requirement that we see quite often is high transparency. This seems to be a trend in the packaging industry that our customers would like to produce packaging items which they can sell on to their customers which enables the item to be packed to be presented in an attractive way,” ​he said.

“That the consumer can see what is inside the packaging so it should add to the overall appeal of the items being packed and marketed.”​

Market demand​

The role of a raw materials supplier is to find a way to combine flowability, transparency and organoleptic properties to meet customer demands.

The resin reduces the requirement for using another material and is EU food contact approved.

“Our product just sticks to the polyethylene tray, so the top layer of the seal sticks to the tray, there are no adhesives used whatsoever, the effect just comes from the mechanical and material properties of the new resin here.”​

Resin grades shown at K​

LyondellBasell also launched grades for injection moulding applications during the trade show.

“We have launched a new grade here for example a very high melt flowing grade for cups that combines transparency with a good flowability just to enable high speed production of mass items such as cups and trays,” ​said Anker.

“We also have a new grade here for deep freeze applications such as ice cream containers…the impact strength at low temperatures is significantly higher than with other materials.​

“We also have packaging grades that are combining transparency with low processing temperatures, this is a requirement of our customers that we hear quite often.”​

Moplen RP2803 is a random copolymer for thin wall injection moulding products.

EP549U has high impact resistance and rigidity for the deep-freeze applications and is processed on injection moulding machines.

The RP2531 copolymer can be used for inner and outer blow moulding applications to improve the transparency of the product such as food and beverage packaging.

LyondellBasell has 58 sites in 18 countries and is one of the  largest plastics, chemical and refining companies.