Plasma Coating Could Advance Commercialization of Pet Beer Bottles
Canadian Plastics
Group Sidel (LeHarve, France) recently announced a process it claims will enable a plastic beer bottle to meet the criteria of good product taste, recyclability and low cost necessary to compete succe...
Group Sidel (LeHarve, France) recently announced a process it claims will enable a plastic beer bottle to meet the criteria of good product taste, recyclability and low cost necessary to compete successfully with glass. The process, called ACTIS plasma technology, applies a coating from gas in its plasma state to the interior surface of PET bottles. The process is said to improve oxygen and CO2 barrier properties by 30 fold and seven fold respectively, over single layer PET bottles–an improvement that would make PET barrier properties comparable to glass. Tests carried out over a six-month period are reported to have confirmed that the taste quality of beer packaged in treated PET bottles and glass bottles are comparable.
The ACTIS machine, equipped with 20 plasma treatment stations, can be retrofitted to an existing Sidel PET blow molding machine. High output rates of the ACTIS machine enables the coating to be applied in-line with the blow-molding operation.
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