Colloids Limited (stand L31) is exhibiting for the first time at Packaging Innovations 2018 to promote its extensive range of standard and speciality coloured, white and black masterbatches, compounds and additives. Packaging Innovations 2018 (which includes Ecopack and Contract Pack), which runs from 28 February to 1 March at the NEC, Birmingham, is now the UK’s largest annual packaging event attracting more than 6000 visitors looking for packaging solutions.
Colloids, with in-house R&D and factories in Merseyside, Northamptonshire and China, provides innovative polymer solutions for a wide range of markets and applications; packaging is a key market sector for the business. The Colloids’ product range covers blown & cast film, sheet & fibre extrusion, compounding, injection moulding, blow moulding and vacuum forming packaging production processes. In addition to offering masterbatches in standard RAL and Pantone colours, Colloids also offers bespoke customised and special effect metallic, pearlescent, glitter , speckled, marble effects and many other colouring solutions.
Colloids also offers specialty additive products which provide end use application performance attributes including: antifog, antistatic, antiblock, antislip, antibacterial, fire retardant for construction and UV protection for film packaging; electrically conductive and ESD (electrostatically dissipative) grades for electrical and electronics, consumer, medical and ESD industrial packaging; anti-stick grades for stacked rigid packaging; biodegradable, fully recyclable grades. All Colloids products aim to provide both added value processing benefits, such as higher throughput rates, as well as to improve the quality and functional performance of finished products.
Bob Thomas, Technical Director, commented: “Colloids has a proven reputation with leading packaging manufacturing companies in the UK and internationally for our technical added value products. The Colloids R & D team has recently developed a number of new products for plastics packaging and so Packaging Innovation is the ideal event to showcase them. We also hope to meet companies looking for alternative black colouring solutions for rigid plastic packaging, such as for microwavable food trays, which can be detected by recycling companies using NIR (near infra-red) sorting systems, as well as having initial discussions with forward thinking manufacturing companies interested in collaborating with us to develop more sustainable and recyclable polymer packaging for consumer products.”
The Colloids stand will be focusing on its express colour service and latest innovations for packaging customers:
Higher Performance Packaging Masterbatches
Colloids has developed a full range of masterbatches ideally suited for cost effective colouring of speciality polymers, such as ‘metallocene’ based LLDPE grades, increasingly being used to produce higher performing thin gauge multi-layer co-extruded polyethylene (PE) based blown & cast film packaging products. Market demand is primarily coming from on-line and mail order fashion clothes retailers needing tear and puncture resistant tri-layer packaging films to reduce the risk of damage during delivery and return of garments.
Special Effect Colour Masterbatches
In response to a growing demand for metallic, pearlescent, glitter, speckled, marble effects and fluorescent colours for consumer goods and packaging, particularly for personal care and cosmetics products, a new range of masterbatches developed for special effect colours are now available as part of its ‘bespoke’ service. Colloids ‘Smooth’ masterbatches can significantly reduce quality issues such as ‘die drool’ and extrusion ‘drag lines’, particularly with pearlescent colours, enabling the production of high quality parts with a superior surface finish in shorter cycle times, providing cost savings.
Express Colour Masterbatch Service
From its facilities in Rushden, Northamptonshire, Colloids provides its fast response Maxim® universal masterbatch service to meet smaller volume customer needs for standard and custom colour masterbatches at short notice in minimum 1kg order quantities; a next day delivery service is provided to mainland UK customers in any of the 200 standard colours stocked. Colloids’ long established universal carrier system has been optimized for injection, blow moulding and extrusion production processes with a wide range of options which are compatible with 26 polymers including PE, PVC, PS, ABS, polyamides and polyacetals. Custom colours are supplied to order (minimum 25kg up to 100T), including special effect options. For film packaging applications the Colloids manufacturing plant based in Colloids also offers over 50 off the shelf standard masterbatch colours in addition to a bespoke colour matching service.
Technical Support
Support is also provided by Colloids Technical Service & Development personnel in Merseyside and Rushden, who provide technical consultancy on the use of its masterbatches and rapidly providing solutions for customers. A recent example of Colloids providing added value technical support was for a cosmetics packaging injection moulding customer looking for a cost effective way to meet the latest market trend for ‘Black as the go-to hue for any designer looking to give packaging a more high-end look without too much frill and fuss’.
The Colloids Technical Service & Development team in Rushden rose to the challenge. It worked closely with key raw material suppliers, tested various additives and successfully developed a new optimised black masterbatch formulation using novel materials that enable both gloss and matte finishes to be produced from the same injection mould tooling, without the need for any tool surface modification. This innovative new Colloids ‘Matte’ special effect masterbatch not only achieved the desired matte black visual aesthetics, but also provided the added benefit of moulded parts having a better quality feel for the consumer as it increased part weight, making it feel a more solid, slightly heavier, well made finished product. This latest technical development saved the injection moulder more than £50,000 in new tooling and enabled their customer to launch a new range of cosmetics two months earlier.
A range of Colloids ‘Matte’ colours, in fully recyclable formulations, is now available for injection moulders looking to use existing gloss finish tooling to create multiple surface finishes without the need to purchase a second tool or modify existing tooling.
Ecofriendly Masterbatches
Several years ago, Colloids starting developing ecofriendly environmental coloured masterbatch products for flexible packaging applications such as carrier bags and caddy bin liners, and for rigid food packaging and personal care products. Colloids D-K® Environmental masterbatch range includes a product that has a pro-degradant additive, which cause conventional polyolefins to degrade and disintegrate yet have minimal effect on initial polymer properties. Other masterbatches within the D-K range can also be used to colour biodegradable and compostable polymers, without impacting on their ability to comply with EN13432 and DIN CERTCO certification. New sustainable bio-based products are also currently under development.
Global Masterbatch Supplier
Colloids Group is part of the multinational Tosaf, with sister companies in Germany, Turkey, The Netherlands, Israel and the USA, offering a global service to the plastics industry for high quality black, white and colour masterbatches, compounds and performance enhancing additive masterbatches. All manufacturing sites meet ISO 9001 quality standards, with Colloids Knowsley having automotive industry ISO/TS 16949 and 14001 accreditations. Colloids supplies the automotive, agricultural, E&E, construction, pipe, geosynthetics, consumer markets, as well as polymer producers and compounders worldwide.