Easy-Pac 200°F hot melt has been designed to eliminate the problems packaging line operators currently experience with traditional 350°F hot melts which can cause downtime, slow down productionand delay delivery schedules, claims manufacturer National Adhesives.
Hot melt adhesives are solvent-free adhesives, that are usually solid at temperatures below 180°F and rapidly set upon cooling. In the food industry they are used for box and carton heat sealingand are mostly made from polymers.
The hot melt's operating temperature of 200°F has been designed to eliminate the problems packaging line operators currently experience with traditional 350°F products, which can cause downtime,slow down production and delay delivery schedules.
"This is the lowest temperature general packaging hot melt on the market and represents a significant breakthrough in uptime efficiency and employee safety," stated John Rye,National Adhesives' packaging business director.
The adhesive's performance is accomplished by reducing char the minimum, the largest single cause of adhesive application malfunctions. Char is the substance produced by overheated hot melt oroutside contaminants in the melt unit or hoses which can clog filters, hoses and nozzles and halt packaging linest.
Because EASY-PAC does not produce char and runs cleanly, there is a significant decrease in clogged nozzles and hoses. Operators often increase dispensing pressures to compensate for reduced flow,resulting in wider bead widths and wasted adhesives, the company stated.
Industry experience has shown that operations with clean-running hot melts use 10 per cent less adhesive than the norm, National Adhesives claims.
"We have found that an average packaging operation typically spends about $0.30 on equipment replacement parts for every $1 spent on adhesive," the company stated. "Easy-Pachot melt users will minimise equipment replacement parts expenditure due to the low, 200°F operating temperature."
in case of an accident, burn severity is reduced with the 200°F hot melt. In addition, the employees have limited or no exposure to hot nozzles and guns during maintenance operations.
National Adhesives is a unit of National Starch and Chemical Co., which had worldwide sales of $3.3 billion in 2004.