Sabic (Riyadh / Saudi Arabia; www.sabic.com) has introduced a blow moulding grade of HDPE developed for the production of bottles for milk, other dairy products and juices. The company said the principal target for the grade is bottles for UHT and sterilised milk that are produced on high-speed extrusion blow moulding lines, especially in southern European countries.

Sabic HDPE B5260ULS (ultra long shelf life) is produced using proprietary polymerisation technology and has the necessary processing properties required by converters to run on equipment typically used for the UHT and sterilised milk market. Its melt flow rate and broad molecular weight distribution brings good performance during extrusion and blowing, Sabic said, and it is suitable for multi- and mono-layer constructions.

Gerrit-Jan Bekink, technical marketing engineer HDPE at Sabic, said the material “is a high-purity grade that features good organoleptic properties that are especially important when using in-bottle sterilisation, where the packaging as well as the product are subjected to tough thermal and mechanical conditions. Furthermore, the new grade’s well-balanced set of mechanical properties, with a good combination of stiffness, impact resistance and environmental stress crack resistance is well suited for this high-demanding segment”.