PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2019

BOTTLE MAKING 10 PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 11/19 www.petpla.net 0.25 litre CSD bottle with internal coating First production of the 0.25 litre CSD bottle with inner coat- ing began nearly three years ago at Hindustan Coca-Cola’s plant in Hyderabad, India. There are currently four plants on the sub-continent with two more in the pipeline. So, it is time to drop in and get to the bottom of the technology. We met: Mr Girish Chhablani, Factory Manager HCCB Hindustan Coca-Cola Bev- erages Pvt Ltd (HCCB) was looking for an alternative to their returnable 0.2 l and 0.3 l bottles. Due to the long sales distances, a different option needed to have a shelf life of at least six months. To this end, an attempt was made to develop a PET bottle involving Coca- Co l a A t l a n t a a n d KHS. The bottle still had to be affordable. That is why HCCB called the packag- ing affordable small sparkling package or ASSP. The lack of barrier properties in the small PET bottle size only achieves a 60 da y s e x p i r y date, which allows the Plasmax coating system to be used. A three-layer inner coat- ing (adhesives, glass barrier, coating) can achieve the neces- sary shelf life. The original facility was built in Hyderabad in 2016. With a capacity of 36,000 bph, Coca- Cola was able to cap- ture the Indian market. A second plant was built the following year in Vijayawada, which achieved a figure of 46,000 bph using similar technology. It differs from the original plant in that it is blocked (tri- block), with unreliable air conveyors having been removed from the single machine layout. The stretch blow mould, Plasmax and shrink packer The process begins with a pre- form inspection. Preforms contain- ing foreign matter (1 ppm or more) are removed. They then enter a 24-cavity SBM. The heating tunnel is not very long as only preforms weighing less than 10 g are heated. Each blown bottle has its own code which is later covered by a label showing cavity and production time. Air vents cool the floor area via sev- eral transfer stars and the Plasmax enters the unit’s main system. The bottles go into vacuum chambers in batches of four. On evacuation, three layers are deposited on the inner bottle wall via ignited plasmas. First there is an adhesive layer, fol- lowed by the actual glass barrier layer which is only a few molecules in diameter, and finally a protective layer. The glass layer is clear in con- trast to the yellowish carbon colour of other coating processes. After evacuation, the bottle’s temperature is around 50 °C. It is cooled from the outside using a water aerosol to approximately 20 °C before being filled in a 144-cavity volumetric filler and secured by a 24-fold servo- capper. Finally, there is another full bottle inspection, followed by further coding which can be used to make a decision on the filling valve and capper head. Production information is recorded in a text box which can be read by the customer. Preforms weighing between 9.61g and 9.68g are processed by the pre- form supplier. HCCB blows a total of three different bottle geometries for its 17 different products. The cap on the 22mm neck is supplied by Bericap. The unusual outer curvature for a CSD cap offers a high level of stability at low weight, thus providing a secure seal against loss of CO 2 . The chief component of the units is the plasma coating. The quality of the coating cannot be determined by Tour Sponsors: Until today running 0.2 l returnable glass bottles The ASSP 250ml bottle was introduced in 2016. components are supplied by KHS Germany while the capper fill- ers, transporters and palletis- ing are provided by KHS India. Box kipper A completely new green- field plant was built by HCCB in 2018 in San- anda, near Ahmedabad which we were allowed to visit. The plant manager is Mr Girish Chhablani who explained every- thing to us. There are two Triblock Freshsafe machines next to one another in the bottling build- ing. In the filler zone, the control positions face each other, which means that just one opera- tive is required in this area. As the blow moulding machine always rotates clockwise (from Blomax Series 5, anti-clockwise), the unit has been mir- rored point-symmet- rically. As a result, the preform material flow, bottle, filling and capping counter-rotate on both units. The two machines can be run by three operators on each shift. One is responsible for the filler area on both units, from the blowing stage to full bottle inspector and the second for the labelling and pack- ing machines on both units. A third operative takes care of the palletis- ing zone.