"Two-Component Solvent-Free White Polyurethane Adhesive - FLEXBON 601A/601W"
Description of the innovation: The world of flexible packaging is growing at an impressive rate driven by consumer preferences shifting toward new attractive packages, ease of use, sustainability, and environmentally conscious options. To address the challenges of finding sustainable and eco-friendly solutions, Uflex Limited - Chemical business has developed FLEXBON 601A/601W, a two-component solvent-free white polyurethane adhesive based on green chemistry and acquired an Indian patent (Patent No. 406417; Title: Solvent-Free Pigmented Adhesive Composition and a Process for its Preparation).
Fig. 1: Patent Certificate
FLEXBON 601A/601W is a solvent-free general-to-medium-performance white adhesive that provides dual properties: adhesive and white ink. It works well on existing solventless lamination machines at faster rates with excellent adhesion, good opacity, and gloss. These features make it unique compared to other lamination adhesives worldwide. It helps to reduce the use of white ink by 20-30% and can be considered for almost 60% majority white ink application in flexible packaging, significantly reducing VOCs associated with ink and cost-effectiveness. The process for preparing the adhesive composition is simple, efficient, solvent-free, and environmentally friendly, providing a sustainable and green option for the flexible packaging industry.
Fig. 2: FLEXBON 601A/601W White Adhesive
The presence of high levels of volatile organic solvents in solvent-based conventional adhesives is being restricted due to environmental regulations concerning the emission of high volatile organic contents (VOCs) and their energy-intensive nature. By developing this solvent-free white adhesive, FLEXBON 601A/601W, customers have the freedom to choose a greener option, reducing carbon footprints and being cost-effective, while also offering excellent adhesion to a variety of films such as BOPP, METBOPP, LDPE (up to 50-micron thickness) and can be applied with NCPU and all other ink systems.
Fig. 3: Packaging prepared with FLEXBON 601A/601W white adhesive
Advantages:
- The developed adhesive is solvent-free, resulting in no VOC generation itself and reducing the need for white ink coating on printed substrates. This leads to substantial cost savings and a reduction in ink VOC emissions, ultimately reducing the carbon footprint significantly.
- The adhesive enables higher machine speeds ranging from 300-350 meters per minute, leading to higher productivity with excellent machinability on existing solventless lamination machines.
- It replaces multi-layered coating systems with a mono-layer, offering comparable opacity and contributing to a sustainable option for reducing VOCs, energy, and costs.
- It offers excellent wettability, enhancing the look of packaging and providing improved wettability on metallized substrates.
- It consumes less power and significantly reduces application costs.
- It is a low-temperature curable system, operating at 35-45 °C, making it an energy-efficient adhesive.
- The fast decay of primary aromatic amines makes it highly environmentally friendly and sustainable.
Therefore, this development can be considered an energy-efficient, VOC-free, and cost-effective option for sustainability and green chemistry in flexible packaging lamination.
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