A revolutionary new technology has been announced that is targeted to bring significant energy and cost savings, as well as other benefits, to liquid packaging producers worldwide. Known as LiquiForm, the breakthrough blow moulding and filling manufacturing technology uses consumable, pressurised liquid instead of compressed air to form plastic containers. By combining the bottle forming and filling processes into one step, this technology eliminates numerous manufacturing steps.
The LiquiForm Group has signed agreements with Yoshino Kogyosho, Japan’s largest plastic bottle manufacturer, to further develop the technology, and with Nestle Waters, one of the world’s leading bottle water companies, to acquire their intellectual property in this innovative technology.
Ann O’Hara, President of LiquiForm, said: “LiquiForm represents a significant opportunity for the consumer products industry by creating a step-change in efficiency and flexibility. By partnering with respected equipment manufacturers as well as international converters and leading Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies, we are set up to have the technology achieve its full potential. And looking forward, we seek to make the technology widely available through a licensing and royalty system which encourages partners and licensees to invest in future innovation and development.”
The preform is placed in the mould and then the actual liquid or whatever product is to be bottled is forced at high pressure into the preform, moulding it into the bottle shape. This results in a filled bottle, ready for capping and labelling.
The LiquiForm technology has been validated with a significant range of packaging substrates, products and conditions using the same LiquiForm machine for cold, ambient and hot-fill containers.
Benefits include:
- Energy reduction - no need for compressed air as the bottles are formed when they are filled with the beverage or product
- Improved sustainability with lower energy use
- Less cost to produce - no redundant equipment associated with traditional blow and fill operations
- Operational efficiency - reduced labour, waste and downtime
- Reduced footprint - forming and filling are combined in one operation, reducing the amount of floor space required
LiquiForm Group is now actively seeking additional commercial partners. The technology will be widely available through a licensing and royalty system, which encourages partners and licensees to invest in future innovation and development.
LiquiForm is the result of a joint venture originally established by Amcor, a multinational packaging leader, and Sidel, a global provider of PET solutions for liquid packaging.
It is expected that more equipment manufacturers and FMCG companies will be able to purchase developer kits to accelerate their own product development at some stage in the near future. Full scale commercialisation of the LiquiForm technology is currently expected to occur by 2018.
(PRA)