PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2011

BOTTLING / FILLING 33 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 03/11 www.petpla.net the experiment also came into the lab from time to time to see how we were progressing.” He also visited Hamburg several times during testing. Mr Gursahaney: “We tested vari- ous PET bottles with differing distri- butions of material to see how they behaved during hot filling, during the ensuing dose with a precisely stipu- lated amount of nitrogen, and during capping. Testing extended to the establishment of a manual filling line. We first filled each PET bottle with hot water. On the next station on the line an exact amount of nitrogen was added to each PET bottle. It was then capped and cooled with ice-cold water. After cooling each and every PET bottle was scrutinized down to the last detail.” Several thousand bottles went through the test phase. “Initially, KHS Corpoplast produced individual batches of 400 to 500 PET bottles. After testing one batch, we could assess where the weak points were in that PET bottle design. A new batch of PET bottles was then manufactured, tested, and again refined.” The test phase lasted for half a year, altogether, by which time the companies had developed a PET bottle that was found to be suitable for defined nitrogen dose after hot filling. The testing process then moved on to series production-level assessment and analysis, for which KHS rented a filling line in Germany. The HotFill+ process was tested with the latest design and, after filling 5,000 PET bot- tles, it was discovered that only about half met the requirements – the other half was either too unstable or too heavily inflated. Mr Gursahaney: “ However, I reached the conclusion that the pro- cess itself worked. All we now had to do was to ensure that we duplicated the performance that had produced the perfectly filled PET bottles. Specifically, this meant that all three companies had to aim for a repeated accuracy of their process of almost 100%. I asked my partners if they thought this was possible. If, at this point, they had not agreed, the project would have been terminated. All three partners gave me a clear ‘yes’. This commitment led Pepsi to invest in its first KHS line in Yekater- inburg, which operates on HotFill+ technology. But the challenges were not yet over. Mr Gursahaney: “When we first started operating the filling line, we had a loss of over ten per cent. After further optimization, four weeks later we had a rejection rate of less than 0.1% – which we still have now and which is the norm for our type of industry. We are very satisfied with this. Pepsi reduced the weight of a 1.5l bottle from 63 to 48g, which saves approximately $2.5 million dollars a year in PET material costs, for just one filling line. “We now have three HotFill+ lines up and running at our plants in Yekat- erinburg and Moscow. We now make an annual saving of 7.5 million dollars. Pepsi reports that, over the two years since the HotFill+ lines have been running, it has had no quality issues or complaints from either retail- ers or customers with PET bottles filled using the technology. HotFill+ was developed exclu- sively for Pepsi but the company has declined to patent it just for itself and has made it available for all interested organizations. www.khs.com Rajendra Gursahaney, Senior Direc- tor of Engineering, Pepsi Beverages Company MHT MOLD & HOTRUNNER TECHNOLOGY Dr. Ruben-Rausing-Str. 7 | D-65239 Hochheim/Main Tel. +49(0) 6146-906-0 | www.mht-ag.de Lightweight threads are on everyone’s lips. After all, the smallest PET saving per preform soon amounts to hundreds of thousands of Euros for ma- jor bottlers each year. Looking to convert your mold to a new thread and need an experienced partner? MHT Mold & Hotrunner Technology offers all light- weight solutions on the market, including: • PCO1881 (17 mm / 3.8 g) • MHT 21 LIGHT (21 mm / 3.9 g) • 29/25 (12.6 mm / 2.4 g) Engineering made in Germany MHT: Your specialist for lightweight solutions!