PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2012

CAPPING / CLOSURES 37 PET planet insider Vol. 13 No. 06/12 www.petpla.net Bericap reaches North American commercial market with its DoubleSeal one-piece hot f ll closure Slimming down for hot-fill Bericap North America announced in March that its exclusive DoubleSeal cap technology is now commercially available in the North American market. In itself, the system is not new. But now Bericap, in the shape of its DoubleSeal System, is also conducting hot fill opera- tions with a reduced neck thickness, something which has up to now not been the case. Old, traditional wall thicknesses for 38mm necks are in the region of approx. 2.4mm; the wall thickness in the USA is approx. 2.2mm. Bericap’s successful tests in Latin-America show that a wall thickness of 1.5mm is pos- sible, as a result of this some signifi- cant weight savings are emerging. The design is considered unique for hot fill applications since it will support, rather than distort, the finish when compared to traditional two-piece closures that cannot hold the finish when softened by the hot filled product. One piece closures with an inte- grated DoubleSeal-system provide sig- nificant higher seal and release angle. Only after a 160° turn of the closure the package will lose integrity where as a package closed with a two pieces closure will lose its integrity already after very few degrees of opening angle. “Traditional two-piece liner-and- shell top seal closures require con- siderable torque in order to properly seal the container,” explains Volker Spiesmacher, Sales Director of Beri- cap. “In hot fill applications, the bottle neck is softened by the heat from the product itself. Consequently, the side and down-pressure from applying the closure puts considerable stress on the bottle finish. This can cause it to distort or ovalize, which can lead to leaking and product contamination.” The Bericap linerless one piece closure is featured with the DoubleSeal system, offering an outer and inner seal securing the integrity of the filled product. Furthermore, instead of down pressure during the sealing process, DoubleSeal caps provide lateral, oppos- ing force pressure from both the outside and inside – effectively supporting instead of distorting the neck – which also results in a superior seal compared to the traditional two-piece method. As a result the Double Seal System allows to lightweight the neck walls of the hot fill bottle. The significant weight and cost savings are feasible. The chances of having a ‘leaker’ with DoubleSeal caps are virtually nil. That’s just one advantage of this prod- uct for industry users. The thicker walls employed to combat distortion from two-piece closures can be slimmed down dramatically. Currently, the neck finishes in a typical 20-oz. hot fill con- tainer are about 95/1,000 of an inch thick. Depending on the customer’s filling process; we could go down to 50/10,00 of an inch. This is nearly 50% less with no sealing problems whatso- ever. The seal integrity for a product is another area where DoubleSeal offers improvement. With Bericap’s technol- ogy it breaks at a rotation point of up to 120%. According to Bericap, a 95 to 50/1,000-inch finish reduction will save about 3g of plastic, or 10% of the 30g total in a typical 20-oz. bottle. This means much less material going into bottles, and which needs to be dealt with post-usage. This achieves a reduction in the energy used to pro- duce the bottles, resulting in a reduced carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions. Fits easily into existing lines The design, testing, validation and production of reduced plastic neck finishes won’t happen overnight, however, the system can fit easily into existing hot-fill operations. The change- over from two-piece equipment can be accomplished with very little production downtime, typically in less than a day. Although newly commercialised with an isotonic category leader in North America, Bericap’s liner-less tech- nology is already proven in both hot fill, aseptic and cold fill applications. DoubleSeal caps are made with HDPE (High Density Polyethylene). www.bericap.com sensitive BEVERAGES