Torninova launches stretch-film line, pairs with Macchi on tech and sales

Italy’s Torninova Srl (Bastia Umbra) is expanding its collaboration with extruder manufacturer Macchi to push its business outside protective bubble film into three-layer stretch film.

The company will use a 30-day open house in November to show off its new Compact Stretch 1000-mm stretch-film line. The Perugia-based firm also announced what its calls a “new technical and commercial collaboration” with Macchi SpA, the Venegono Inferiore-based supplier of film extrusion, winder, and roller equipment.

Marco Bastianini, Torninova’s chief sales officer, told MPW his company reached an agreement with Macchi in mid-June wherein Macchi offered Torninova technical advice on extrusion, as well as commercial support for the new stretch-film system. Macchi, which manufactures blown-film systems up to nine layers for low-density polyethylene, linear low-density polyethylene, and high-density polyethylene, also offers coextrusion cast-film systems for stretch, CCP, and diaper film. Bastianini said that although Macchi already produces cast lines for stretch film, it doesn’t offer them in the smaller, 1m size, and thus will add Torninova’s Compact to round out its line, using its sales network to promote the system.

Developed in conjunction with a client, the Compact Stretch 1000 consists of a three-layer cast-film line that offers varying layer thicknesses in an A/B/C arrangement. The Compact has automatic and manual production of stretch-film bobbins in line, with the 1000-mm-wide web supporting two 500-mm bobbins or four 250-mm bobbins. Film thicknesses range from 15-40 µm, and output tops out at 500 kg/hr, with speeds up to 500 m/min, so that up to 450 rolls/hr can be made in manual mode.

Torninova says the system also features a new edge-trim recovery system that has a “special forcer,” which allows all aspirated and chopped trimming residue coming from the mill to be used, with the scrap fed directly to the principal extruder. According to Bastianini, the Compact’s edge-trim retrieval system differs from the standard technology by aligning the scrap refeeder horizontally. This serves to compact the blend of flake and virgin resin and force the mixture into the feed section of the main extruder. In addition to being water cooled, the extruder has an internal torque-controlled rotary disc that’s designed to minimize pressure fluctuations at the tip of the screw.

Torninova plans to have two sizes of the stretch-film line, 1000 and 2000 mm, with the 1000-mm system utilizing three extruders—120, 250, and 450 kg/hr—all with a 30 L/D screw ratio.

The 1000-mm line creates three-layer film structures with respective thickness percentages of 30%, 55%, and 15%. Torninova says the 2000-mm system will split the respective thicknesses of the three layers: 41%, 41%, and 18%. The smaller line can slit two rolls in line, with the larger unit doubling that to four. Both have a finished roll diameter from 80-250 mm. —Tony Deligio