Inorganic filler makes presence felt in film

Calcium carbonate loadings of up to 50% are possible in a twin-head, three-layer (A/B/A) blown-film line from Kang Chyau Industry (Taipei).

The machine builder’s partner in this development is Formosa Plastics Corp. (Taipei), which developed the Nano Calmalon nano-precipitated filler. Sales administrator Rachel Lin says that pre-drying is required for such high loadings, but lower loadings can be incorporated without drying. Formosa also offers U-Cal micronized calcium carbonate filler (1–2-µm particle size) that can be incorporated at up to 35% loading without drying. “We find most processors opt for a 20%–30% loading of U-Cal, which is cheaper than Nano Calmalon,” says Lin.

Kang Chyau’s KMTL-4045T line outputs film in 400-mm width with each die head extruding up to 32 kg/hr of HDPE, LDPE, or LLDPE film. “We sell the system for $72,000,” says sales manager Eric Chang. —mpweditorial@cancom.com