At its recent pre-K press conference, the Brückner Group gave a preview of the newest solutions and innovations which its member companies will present at K 2022.

Brückner Maschinenbau further increases film production efficiency

With an aim of fighting against climate change, Brückner Maschinenbau will highlight its works on further increasing efficiency in its film production.

This means producing plastic packaging film in a way that conserves resources by decreasing raw material use, lowering energy consumption and achieving "zero waste".

According to the company, the more efficient and higher output a film stretching line is, the lower the specific energy consumption. These parameters can mainly be influenced by the line speed and the line width.

• BOPP and BOPET
  
  In the production of the two most popular packaging films, BOPP and BOPET, the benchmark in production speed has so far been around 600m/min. Brückner Maschinenbau will share new line concepts with significantly higher running speeds.

Brückner Maschinenbau’s BOPP line.

• BOPA
  
  BO films made of polyamide are particularly suitable for packaging oily, fatty foods and for frozen foods. The demand for this is continuously increasing and with it the demand for corresponding film stretching lines.
  
  Brückner Maschinenbau will show new line types with up to 80% more output – based on an increase in production speed from 220m/min to 350m/min and a line widening from 6.6m to 7.4m.

• Battery separator foils and capacitor foils
  
  In these segments, the previous (already exclusive) line width of 5.5m is being increased step by step to over 6m and the associated increase in output of over 20%.
  
  And both the sequential and the simultaneous stretching technology for capacitor films were further developed where the focus was on higher film yield and optimised film properties, especially for films in the 2 µm range.

Technical innovations for higher sustainability

Brückner Maschinenbau has enabled direct recycling thanks to a new "direct fluff dosing" system. With this, the edge trimmings and waste produced during production can be directly fed back into the extrusion process in a higher percentage – without any prior re-granulation process. This saves energy, conserves raw material and comes very close to the goal of "zero waste" in production.

The company has also updated its intelligent stretching oven management. Instead of the heat exchangers previously used for heat recovery, a patented, energy-efficient oven control system across all temperature zones of the stretching oven now ensures an energy saving of around 200 kW per year.

Besides, it adopts aerodynamic zone separation, a patented process which guarantees even better and more uniform film quality across the entire working width and for ever higher production speeds. This increases the proportion of A-grade film on the winder, reduces production waste and lowers specific energy consumption.

Brückner Servtec focuses on customized line conversion packages

Brückner Servtec, at the same time, will introduce the Line Transformation Packages, its latest customized conversion packages designed for the conversion of existing film stretching lines to the sustainable production of recyclable mono-material film types, such as BOPP, BOPLA or BOPE.

The upgraded solutions for energy reduction and higher quality in the production processes further increase sustainability in film production.

The necessary conversion measures are individually adapted to the production line and are available for lines of any age. Together with the line operator, an on-site evaluation of the plant is carried out and from this the specific requirements for the conversion are identified.

• The Line Transformation Package BOPP - ILC (Inline Coating)
  
  It enables the production of recyclable ultra-high barrier films (UHB) on existing BOPP production lines. The innovative ILC technology is a wet chemical coating (water-based) of plastic films, directly during film production. The step is performed between MD and TD orientation
  
  The nanometer scale coating enhances further processing steps such as metallization, significantly reduces the use of foreign material content and thus allows the production of recyclable films according to EU Directive 94/62/EC

• The new Line Transformation Package BOPP - PE
  
  It extends the product portfolio of all BOPP film stretching lines by the option LLDPE or HDPE. BOPE films have very good mechanical properties, allow replacement of blown film PE on only half of the thickness, and thus enables mono-material structures which are fully recyclable
  
  The necessary modification steps, typically in the extrusion, casting unit and MDO areas, are individually tailored to the line and situation on site
  
  The hybrid machine design, optimized for high output, offers operators the choice of continuing to produce BOPP at full output as well as BOPE film profitably

• The Line Transformation Package BOPET - PLA
  
  It allows the production of this biobased raw material. BOPLA films offer very good moisture transmission properties, have a high natural level of surface tension and are industrially compostable
  
  The conversion package combines all necessary adjustments in the field of extrusion and raw material feeding with the necessary process know-how to produce PLA films in high quality and at high output

Brückner ONE Digital Service Platform now more capable

Moreover, new functions of the established Brückner ONE Digital Service Platform will be shown, which facilitate the maintenance and operation of film stretching lines.

More functions are available on Brückner ONE Digital Service Platform.

The automatic language switching function, for example, is available for the service module and enables easy conversations of customers and service specialists in their native language.

A new online AI routine automatically translates all input into the user's preferred language. Currently, more than 20 languages are supported in addition to English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish or Portuguese.

Another new function, the Brückner ONE Maintenance Plan Assistant, is the entry into the world of preventive and predictive maintenance and makes service easy and plannable.

The system uses sensors and algorithms to continuously check the condition of the plant and installed components and informs the plant operator as soon as a maintenance action is necessary.

It guides the user conveniently through a range of steps from the procurement of spare parts to the automatic creation of a service case and detailed maintenance instructions.

The module is intended to be expandable to the plant operator's entire production chain and can support up- and downstream components such as slitters, metallizers, crane systems and more.

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Current business outlook of the Brückner Group