Plastics are favored by container manufacturers because of their advantages such as low production cost, flexible design, light weight, and good quality. On the retail shelves, its sensory quality has also been sought after by consumers. Therefore, in recent years, plastic containers have become more and more widely used in the packaging field. A survey conducted by the Freedonia Group's survey company in January 2004 showed that at present, the quantity of polymers used to make plastic containers cannot meet the needs of the world. Demand for plastic containers continues to rise. In the United States alone, the output value of plastic containers is expected to grow at an annual rate of 5.3%, reaching $17 billion by 2008.
The constant increase in the demand for plastic containers has prompted container manufacturers to continuously invest large sums of money in the development of the latest technologies in order to continuously increase production speed and output to meet the demand for orders. According to Freedonia's prediction, further popularization of plastic containers in the market will cause another trend change accordingly. That is, the demand for plastics manufacturing machinery, that is, packaging equipment such as blow molding, will increase rapidly. Observers in the industry expect that the market demand for the above machinery will reach US$2.8 billion in 2005. In a container manufacturer's factory, so many machines can produce 15 billion tons of products each year.
The plastic container market is heating up and the blow-molding technology continues to innovate. The traditional blow-molding technology Blow-molding is the primary method of forming hollow plastic objects. It has three basic technologies: extrusion, injection and stretching.
Injection blow molding is the most popular method. The advantages of this method are mainly three: First, the processing of the container will not have debris; Second, the three blow molding stations in the process to ensure the formation of the fine container wall and the crude filament container neck; third Injection blow molding can be used to blow multiple containers. The use of injection blow moulding technology allows precise wall thicknesses and high-quality necking of containers, which can handle polymers that cannot be extruded. Typical applications include medicines, cosmetics, and single servings that weigh less than 12 ounces.
Extrusion blow molding is commonly used in high volume applications - over 50,000 or 60,000 productions per hour. Plastic containers typically weigh more than 12 ounces. Extrusion blow molding is an ideal method for food packaging. Stretch blow molding, on the other hand, is only suitable for crystals and crystallizable polymers that are difficult to blow, such as polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate.
Blow molding equipment adopting new technology to meet market demand
Blow-molding equipment that was once thought to have reached the state-of-the-art technology 10 years ago may not be present in the factory. As with personal computers, both extrusion and blow molding machines are considered obsolete devices in the next few years due to the rapid advancements in technology. The introduction of more sophisticated equipment has to some extent contributed to the increase in the output of plastic containers. Because there are millions of machine equipments with complicated heavy-load performance behind each plastic container production, these equipments are guaranteed to keep pace with the launch of new-generation products.
Moreover, the intensification of market competition also promotes the development of blow molding technology. As we all know, the competition in the packaging market is very fierce, which drives packaged consumer goods manufacturers (CPGs) to find ways to design products that can enhance brand appeal.
High-yield blow molding equipment is one of the favored products of plastic container manufacturers, but the meaning of high-yielding equipment is far more than “faster rotation speedâ€. For example, today's integrated injection blow molding line has a multi-cavity blowing function that can complete multiple pieces of plastic or "blank" blow molding at a time. John Denner, Product Development Manager at Graham Packaging, explains: "A rotary search tray replaces a single table, which allows users to inject more quickly.
In addition, when the user cools one workpiece, the other can be injected blow molded simultaneously. “As consumers continue to communicate their needs to product manufacturers in order to promote their continuous technological innovation and position as technology leaders, product manufacturers will also demand higher mechanical production requirements from packaging machinery manufacturers. This also ensures the competitive advantage of packaging machinery manufacturers.
For example, the German manufacturer Uniloy launched a new blow molding machine to meet the needs of users and the market. It can be equipped with a single blowing station or a double blowing station, with single, double, triple, or 0.2 liters to 1 litre range. Four blank molds. At the same time there is also an easy-to-operate color touch-screen operator interface control panel. The device is Ethernet-connected for remote diagnostics. Although these are not Uniloy's unique technologies, they show that the adoption of high-end technologies has now become the mainstream of blow molding production lines.
Diversified equipment is enough to meet the design requirements of the product. Replacement of the entire mature production line is completely unnecessary. All that needs to be done now is to carry out simple mechanical reorganization. Jeff Neuman, deputy manager of sales and marketing at Wilmington Machinery, said that for gallons, consumers tend to have easy-to-use handles that require extrusion blow molding; stretch-molding PET blow molding is the best method for single-piece work-pieces. If you add a peculiarly shaped shrink label, backlog or stretch blow molding is possible.
It can be seen that the market has higher and higher requirements for packaging equipment, and the equipment must continue to undergo technological innovation while it must achieve actual high speed, high efficiency, and low warranty. Plastic container manufacturers should also keep up with this change in trend so that they are not eliminated by the market.