The Dow Chemical Company’s Packaging and Specialty Plastics business said INNATE Precision Packaging Resins are created from a patented molecular catalyst coupled with process technology developed by the firm.
Dow said the resins were developed after discussions with converters and brand owners and analysis of market trends.
Light-weighting and downguaging
Nestor de Mattos marketing director, Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, said it has people looking at different parts of the value chain.
“Current resins available for packaging manufacturers needed to evolve in terms of performance. There is a trend of light-weighting packages and driving downguaging but at some point the pack starts to lose integrity and the product inside can get spoiled,” he told FoodProductionDaily.
“INNATE is tough and stiff and with that balance convertors can design new packages, as old resins have kept flexible packages in one place…they have hit the wall in terms of performance.”
Further downguaging opens doors for more sustainably economic packaging, said de Mattos.
“Options they couldn’t have before because they were too expensive or didn’t fit their sustainability profiles they can now do,” he said.
“The abuse resistance is higher so packages that were failing from an integrity point of view can be adopted.
“This has big potential to make a difference in the flexible packaging chain and we look forward to seeing packages on the shelf with INNATE, we expect that to be some point in 2016 but this depends on the convertors.”
Dow said the resins offer opportunities for new packaging efficiencies through material substitution, having up to twice the abuse resistance in co-extruded films compared to tested standard polyethylene resins on the market and processing ease with bubble stability.
Market potential
Suzanne Guerra, research scientist at Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, told us that there were no specific requirements for moderating existing equipment.
“We see INNATE as providing new tools for convertors in the packaging toolbox. How they want to use it is up to them, we provide the new options and it depends on the application requirements.
“Applications differ in every case on the product in the packaging. The resin is an ethylene-based copolymer so it has a typical range for PE temperature resistance profiles.
“It is a complement to our broader packaging portfolio we are not targeting replacement of resins.
“Metallocene technology is a term used in industry to refer to different types of catalyst used to make different PE. The point here is our molecular catalyst is specifically developed and we are using it to deliver INNATE to the market.”
Guerra and de Mattos said it has not looked at bio-based alternatives for INNATE but there were other initiatives in this area as part of the wider business.