Testimonials - Co-Extrusion

Phil S. is a Process Engineer for a large manufacturer of multi-layer packaging films in California. Here's his description of how SuperNova Chemical Purging Compound has helped improve productivity for him:

We'd get a build up of carbon in our EVOH and EVA layers - I think because we use a lot of reprocessed material. About every 3 months we'd have to tear down and clean the dies. That's a 24 hour job. On a line that runs 24/7 this costs us a lot of money.

Believe it or not, we used to use a home-made purging blend made up with
Bon-Ami and polypropylene resin and TiO2. It helped some, but it had a tendency to
bridge on us right back up into the throat. So when I heard about SuperNova I discussed it with my boss. I felt it would be a better way to P/M the lines and he authorized me to try it out.

The first purge I did was on a 7 layer system. Two-inch to 4-and-a-half inch extruders. We purged 5 of the 7 layers with the dies up to 550 degrees and ran PP through the outside layers during the purge. It cleaned up very nicely. We couldn't believe what came out of the system. We saw a lot of crap come out but when we were done the dies looked clean. Then we shut down and when we brought the line back up we had a few specks but they cleared up quickly.

We ran clean for a month and then purged again. We had a scare when we got some smoke blowing out the EVOH layer of the die but it turned out not to be anything to do with the SuperNova. What happened is that the mixer downstream of that extruder over-heated.

Since then we've started using SuperNova on all the co-ex lines. We haven't had to teardown and clean a die since August so that means we've at least doubled the time here. We used to run about 600,000 lbs between teardowns and new we're up over a million. So regular purging with the SuperNova's been a real help to us.