Aquapurge offers gold standard purging for blow moulders

Leading purging compound developer Aquapurge reports a month of positive feedback and endorsement for its new Poly Clear HMEX product. Technical Director John Steadman says that ‘we knew when we launched last month that our Poly Clear HMEX is by far the most universal and most effective purging compound that Aquapurge has ever developed for difficult polyolefin changes. And now our customer base has confirmed it to us in spades; telling us that what we have is the fastest and easiest purge on the market. What we are also proving in these early days is the effective removal of loosened carbon without opening a Pandora’s Box on continuous and accumulator blow moulding machines.’ Steadman says that ‘all this feedback is part of an amazing reception for Poly Clear HMEX at over twelve blow moulding sites in the past few weeks. UK sales are now seeing a quantum shift, our Berlin-based German distributor is using all we can ship and we are already gearing a boost in our Poly Clear HMEX production for the coming months.’ Steadman points out that many blow moulders are rightly sensitive about submitting their capital assets to new compounds and new processes. ‘We were very fortunate to have opened as many doors as we have over the past five weeks. In the past many blow moulders have had unfortunate experiences; everything has been tried to poor effect and there have been stories of damage being done to screws. The up side of this for us is that through March 2013 Poly Clear HMEX has confounded user expectations. Moulders have been amazed at the results, perhaps because they believed it might crash and burn. The exact opposite is the case.’ Steadman notes that Poly Clear HMEX works best at maximum throughput ‘so for continuous extrusion process we would typically use 1/10 in weight when compared to HDPE – and the same ratio for accumulator-based moulding. At Aquapurge we are really delighted with what we’ve managed to do with this product in such a short space of time. We developed the new compound from Poly Clear 100 to Poly Clear HMEX and we are now 50% faster.’ Aquapurge continues to stress that a regular practice of blow moulding machine purging is great for business. ‘Purging gives blow moulding producers an opportunity to really flex with the market demand,’ says Steadman. ‘Why make your customers wait in line for business? It simply gives them an opportunity to move on and shop elsewhere.’ Poly Clear HMEX is therefore set to deliver benefit to producers of plastic blow-moulded container applications, typically from 0.25l upwards; saving downtime; material cost and colour contamination. Aquapurge believes that many blow moulders are currently tying up valuable time and money, simply by: a) not purging their equipment at all b) instead, simply running colour through to clear for the next job. c) producing customer orders to an ‘ideal’ colour schedule d) scheduling tool changes simply to match the colour running at that time ‘These are common practices,’ notes John, ‘and can actually devalue the whole production process; decrease machine utilization and also the value of polymers used.’ Poly Clear HMEX is therefore intended to offer a more profitable solution; and to insure and protect against any production disruptions that can harm the profitability of each order. PRESS RELEASE Aquapurge offers gold standard purging for blow moulders All further details from the company. Unit 7, Craufurd Business Park, Silverdale Road, Hayes, Middlesex UB3 3BN. UK. T: +44 (0) 20 8813 7990 F: +44 (0) 20 8848 8404 e: enquiries@aquapurge.com www.aquapurge.com PRESS RELEASE Aquapurge offers gold standard purging for blow moulders The blue purge here shows Aquapurge Poly Clear HMEX being used to purge and colour change a continuous extrusion blow moulding machine. This particular machine is enabled to run in either continuous or accumulator mode, producing blow mouldings up to a maximum shot weight of 3 kg. Using Poly Clear HMEX the colour change took 20 kg of purging compound and a total of 45 minutes downtime, from blue to white. Normally, under the previous process regime the procedure would have taken at lest 3.5 hours and involved at least 320 kg of purging compound.

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