The production of Mono Oriented PE film (MOPE) with cast technology is no longer a utopia: Colines, DOW and Comexi have set a new benchmark for the market, by producing a very high-level 30-micron MOPE with unique and specific mechanical and optical features. The film was totally made with DOW PE-based resins and extruded on the latest generation of Colines Polycast line, equipped with our patented MDO system. The film was subsequently printed with a high-quality solvent-free Comexi Offset CI press, and the result is of the highest level.

“Mono oriented PE film is commonly produced with blown extrusion technology, but the extruded film has some limits. For instance, the blown MOPE film doesn’t have good haze and gloss, which is something easily achieved with cast extrusion technology. In addition, also the possibility to have one side of the film with good sealability is another enormous advantage of cast technology. Of course, this opens a huge market for cast MOPE film, since it would be able to replace some existing products like BOPET, guaranteeing both higher recyclability and extreme downgauging”, Nicola Lombardini, Colines’ R&D Manager, explained.

“We have achieved something extremely innovative, and we will soon make further steps forward thanks to our brand new Polycast R&D-line. The line is perfectly optimized for processing PE resins as well and equipped with our latest MDO unit. We have scheduled further tests with DOW and COMEXI and we are also available for running tests with our customers. Our goal is to take our customers to the “next level” of Mono Oriented PE film production”, Anthony Michael Caprioli, Colines’ CEO, said.

“Dow is committed to developing and providing solutions to enable and accelerate the move to sustainable packaging designs based on mono-PE structures to advance the plastics circular economy. We are very pleased with the outcome achieved together with Colines and Comexi on the MOPE cast technology, and the results prove that we applied the right structure design with our high-performance resins”, Jaroslaw Jelinek, Global Marketing Leader for oriented polyethylene technologies at Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics, added.

“The Comexi Offset CI is a sustainable, solvent-free technology, which provides the highest printing quality with fast time to market and competitive costs. This technology uses curing ElectronBeam (EB) inks and coatings, consumes less ink and energy, has no solvent emissions, and is capable to of printing a wide range of substrates. EB curing provides the best solution for recyclable packaging: the partial crosslink process will increase the thermal resistance of the external packaging layer when printing PE reverse; and the coating EB will provide high surface protection when printing on the surface”, Felip Ferrer, brand manager and business development manager of the offset printing business unit at Comexi,m concluded.