A profitable bond

The Mondi group’s Zeltweg site in Austria, which produces 202M bags annually, bought in National Adhesives’ Dry-Lok as its preferred adhesive, to improve production difficulties after moving the glue mixing process in-house.

Dry-Lok is a powder additive typically used with PE coated paper and HDPE film to paper. When combined with starch and water mix, it is said to provide an excellent alternative to conventional liquid emulsions such as PVAc and EVA typically used for cross spot pasting applications.

“We started using Dry-Lok primarily due to the initial cost savings it offered and after trials also found that it handled much better compared with the forerunner product, saving time and further money in production,” explains Thomas Fuchs, assistant production manager at the Zeltweg site. “The other product was difficult to mix as we had to add in the powder manually in our glue kitchens.

“With Dry-Lok the process is much easier as it is compatible with our mixing system, so can be combined automatically, saving us production time. The Dry-Lok and starch mix is only 30 per cent solid content, compared with 50 per cent with many traditional adhesives. Lower material usage has reduced our adhesive spend by up to 30 per cent.

”We produce a number of products which all use different applications,” Fuchs says. ”When changing the glue on the machine, Dry-Lok has helped reclaim more than half of the change-over time. The process now takes 10 min – compared with 20-25 min before.”

As well as speeding up the overall production process and boosting initial cost savings, Dry-Lok is said to provide better adhesive properties for manufacturer and end user requirements.

“The adhesion with Dry-Lok is definitely better and has faster drying times,” he asserts.” Overall, we are very pleased with the improvements that Dry-Lok has brought in both performance and cost savings, and are currently using Dry-Lok at our other bag making sites.”

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