Illig launches thermoforming route to bottles

German thermoforming equipment major Illig has developed a method of using the process to form bottles at rates consistent with a conventional fill and seal line.

The concept, introduced at the recent Interpack fair in Dusseldorf on the company’s BF70 machine, is claimed to make bottles of just half the weight of blow moulded versions. Illig added that visually the thermoformed types are indistinguishable from those made by the conventional process.

The technology requires absolute synchronisation of machine and tool and uses moveable lower tool parts to achieve the necessary undercut.

New developments ensure, “an absolutely uniform wall thickness distribution in spite of small original area and high depth of draw,” the company said.

The BF70 is roll fed with just a punching station added to separate the bottles from the web using steel rule cutters.

The material used is pre-stretched and formed using sterile pressure air with contact heating plates heating up the material step-by-step during several cycles.

Working at a speed of 25 cycles a minute, an output rate of 30,000 bottles an hour is claimed running at 20 bottles a cycle.