Plastic Converting Line

Plastic Converting Line refers to a set of machinery that converts plastic resin to a finished product. The most common output of the converting line is plastic packaging material, which is also called flexible packaging material. It is used by a wide range of industries like food processing, pharmaceutical, electronics and retail. Some of the typical forms of packaging material is bags, pouches, film (e.g. shrink film, or geo membrane film) air cushion bag.

A converting line has the following most common machinery units:

The first unit is the machine that converts the resin to plastic film. The process is commonly referred to as extrusion. There are two main types of the extrusion machines. Cast film line, which is usually used for very large volumes, or blown film extruder, which is used for relatively smaller volumes and more frequent change-overs.

The next process step of the converting line is surface treatment performed by an equipment called corona treater. Most plastic films have nonporous surfaces with very low surface tensions making them to be non-receptive to bonding with printing inks and adhesives. The corona treater changes the microscopic surface structure of the film increasing the surface tension of it and making it capable to bond with printing.

After the corona treatment, the printing takes place. Historically, the first high quality plastic printing technology was the flexographic printing. Later on, the rotogravure technology was introduced further improving the quality of the print. Most recently, certain types of flexographic technology can match or even surpass the quality of rotogravure printing and still cater for relatively low volume of runs and quick change-overs.

Once printed, the plastic film needs to be trimmed and cut into the exact appropriate size for final processing by the plastic film slitter rewinder. Most of the time, the printed film needs to be trimmed off of redundant margins alongside the length of the film. Also, the printed film needs to be cut up to stripes as the extrusion technology would produce film in multiple width of the final packaging material.

If the plastic film – e.g. shrink film - is the final product, there is no further process taking place within the converting line. The plastic film can be further processed to food pouches or a retail bags. In this case, the final product is created by the pouch bag machine or bag making machine: the film strips are cut up the into pieces, which are welded together and if required, the gussets are created.

Examples

• Pouch bag making machines for producing a variety of barrier pouches: three-side seal, back-seal, vacuum or stand-up pouches.

• Plastic blown film extrusion equipments capable to produce a wide range of PE and PA based barrier and non-barrier films. Mono to nine-layer extruders.

• Plastic bag making machines for the manufacturing of a comprehensive range of plastic bags: Side-seal and bottom seal bags with any type of bag features like different handle types; wicketed or staple stacking; gusseting; perforated grocery rolls; flower bags; courier bags.

• Slitter rewinders: for plastic film trimming and slitting and rewinding at high speed and high process accuracy.

• Corona treaters for the surface treatment of a wide range of plastic film width. High, mdeium and low power machines for different web widths.

• Cast film extrusion line for high volume manufacturing of plastic barrier films.

Market info

One of the North American converting line machinery suppliers is Plastic Equipment Co.

See also Plastic Equipment Co. in MyWikiBiz.

Businesses related to Poly Bag Making Machines will identify themselves by the following 5-digit NAICS codes:

• 33322 - Plastic manufacturing equipment manufacturers
• 32611 - Plastic converting industry

References

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See also

• Plastic Converting Line
• Plastic Processing Equipment

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