Reifenhäuser Blown Film (Worms / Germany; www.reifenhauser-bf.com) has launched a new 11-layer blown film line aimed at meeting rising performance requirements for high-quality barrier packaging applications. The new machine gives producers a lot of choice for layers, and thus eliminates the need for the time-consuming and costly laminating step, Reifenhäuser said. The line also allows for greater flexibility, since more layers often improve performance when processing polyolefins.

In addition, the machine has a new extruder screw design that is capable of handling virtually every type of polyolefin and barrier raw material without requiring any modifications, Reifenhäuser Blown Film product manager Ralf Wiechmann said. This means the product can be quickly changed over, enabling the economic production of small lot sizes of speciality film.

The machine also has an asymmetric high-barrier structure which almost completely prevents film curling without the previously required water bath. It is equipped with an “Evolution” ultra-flat haul-off that ensures winding quality and further processing, including conversion, lamination and printing. The German group added that to ensure the optimal distribution of the eleven layers, it has developed a special die head that can individually adjust layer thicknesses, allowing for the ideal distribution of the raw material depending on the product.