The Sidel Actis 48 produces over 30,000 barrier PET bottles per hour, and existing test methods were inadequate for product qualification and quality tracking, even when statistical methods were used
When French company, Sidel, developed its Actis 48 machine for the high-speed production of barrier PET bottles for the beverage industry, it found that the existing instruments for measuring oxygen permeation or oxygen transmission rate (OTR) were too slow.
To solve the problem, Sidel and Systech Instruments, a British gas analysis specialist, collaborated on the development of a new, faster method of OTR analysis.
The Systech model 8700, the result of this collaboration, halves the time taken to test the barrier PET bottles.
The new system reduces the test cycle time from 24 to 12 hours but importantly allows up to eleven sample bottles to be tested simultaneously using just one instrument.
If increased testing capacity is needed, up to six instruments can be operated in parallel under the control of a single PC.
At such high production rates, fast product quality testing becomes increasingly important, as do running costs.
The new system uses low cost nitrogen as the carrier gas, rather than the more widely used and expensive nitrogen/hydrogen mix and, to minimise downtime and maintenance costs, the oxygen sensor is automatically protected from damage by high oxygen levels.
The new technology behind the Systech 8700, subject to a pending patent, is licensed by Sidel to Systech Instruments for worldwide marketing.
Sidel Actis 48.
The Actis process consists of depositing a thin layer of hydrogen rich amorphous carbon inside a PET bottle.
By reducing CO2 loss and O2 ingress, the Actis process extends the shelf life of sensitive drinks like beer, CSDs, juice or tea packaged in PET bottles up to about 600ml in size (bottle height under neck ring: 254mm, diameter 75mm).
The Actis treatment also brings significant savings in materials costs because bottle weights are lighter.
For example, a 600ml PET bottle for CSDs, weighing 28g, has a shelf life of about eight weeks.
But that same bottle, when Actis treated and lightened to 23g, has a shelf life of over 20 weeks, which results in an 18 percent saving in PET resin.
