PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2013

TRADE SHOW REVIEW 38 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 11/13 www.petpla.net CCT Creative Competence Technology GmbH Idsteiner Strasse 74 D-65527 Niedernhausen, Germany r.steinmetz@cct-systems.com www.cct-systems.com PET Molds Developments PET Systems Design and Patents Closure Systems CCT-33-SST-01 CPC-33-S 01 NEW 33er Preform Head and Closure available!! CCT-33-SFBT-03 Design and Patents Closure Molds CCT-33-SBT-02 Dressed up The KHS-Innoprint machine enables beverage companies to print labels and logos directly onto their PET bottles. The stand- ard KHS-Innoprint is designed to output 36,000 PET bph. The Innoprint had already been pre- sented at the KHS Corpoplast “Open House” at its Hamburg plant in June, Now it was one of KHS’ highlights at the show. This direct digital printing process transfers the required print image straight from the computer to the machine’s control unit. The small- est batches – or in extreme cases even each individual PET bottle – can be adorned with a different image. KHS claims brilliant colours and an optical resolution of 1,080 x 1,080 pixels of the prints. The recipe-controlled format changes make for very fast changeovers. If new bottle types are scheduled for printing, the print head is adjusted to the relevant position for the new bottle diameter and/or height within the space of a few minutes. The machine is able to process a large number of different PET bottles from 0.33 to 1.5l. Container diameters can vary between 40 and 120mm. In its standard version the KHS-Innoprint machine operates with five colour carousels, each of which applies a designated colour to the PET bottles. In order, these are white, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Other colour carousels can also be inserted, such as those loaded with spot colours, to print a special, true-colour logo. Each colour carousel has twelve printing segments. If required these colour carousels can be equipped with fewer segments, meaning that customers can start out with a lower printing capacity and gradually increase this if and when needed. Where the KHS-Innoprint setup is implemented, between 0.1 and 0.25ml of UV ink is needed per bottle print, depending on the degree of coverage and size of the printing area. Each PET bottle is handled by its neck and held in a separate clamp (puck) driven by a direct drive. The bottle mouth remains sealed through the entire printing process and for stability either nitrogen or sterile air can be inserted into the bottle. The puck conveys the bottle from colour carousel to colour carousel, locking it into place magnetically. There is no need for bottle transfers, and very high precision printing is a given. In the future it will also be possible for the printer to be mono- blocked with a stretch blow moulder. The UV inks have a low viscosity, set within a few milliseconds, have a good opacity, can be overprinted, and have good adhesion to untreated PET bottles. The applied ink is briefly dried by UV light in each printing station (pinning). Once the print has been hardened or cured by UV light the labelled bottle is able to withstand all handling inline, in store, and by the consumer. The UV inks are specially devel- oped for KHS for this new piece of plant equipment and are claimed to be espe- cially suitable for use on PET food packaging. Investigations into the inks’ migra- tion characteristics have revealed that they are suitable for use on food packaging. Directly printed PET bottles can also be bottle-to-bottle recycled. www.khs.com