The Formulated Polymers Blog

The next five years will continue to see big changes in the packaging industry for several different reasons. Packaging producers have to adjust to reduce plastic demand from manufacturers and consumers. This means continued development of alternative; more environmentally-friendly forms of packaging are in demand. At the same time, they will have to increase production capability to meet the growing packaging demands of convenience food manufacturers and online retailers and shoppers. They also have to find ways of reducing manufacturing pollution, improve recycling options, and build brands with greater environmental awareness.

In the manufacturing, food retail and envelope sectors, cold seal packaging is becoming the preferred option for cost effective, safe, secure, and high-speed packaging options. With manufacturers producing cold seal packaging machines for high volume, businesses both large and small can benefit from using cold seal packaging technology.

Sometimes, even being the best is just not good enough. Although the EU has for years had in place regulations stipulating all furniture upholstery, foams and plastics must meet certain fire-retardant principles, it is only the UK and Ireland that included an open flame test within their furniture manufacturing laws. Theoretically this makes the UK and Ireland’s manufactured furniture the safest in the European Union.

At Formulated Polymer Products we manufacture a wide range of water borne polymer bound compositions. Applications for these compounds include a range of adhesives including sprayable contact adhesives for furniture manufacture and cold seal adhesives for packaging, paper and film coatings and flame retardant textile coatings. Polyurethane foam impregnants impart several properties, including flame retardancy, oil resistance, conductivity and VOC absorbency.

Dried films of the ML range of prevulcanised natural rubber latex grades exhibit a range of high-performance physical properties.

Prevulcanised latex can be used to produce rubber moulds for products such as plaster ornaments, cast polyester resin figures, concrete garden ornaments, theatrical props, facial special effects and ornamental wax candles. ML grades produce strong, flexible, hard wearing, long lasting moulds with good reproduction of model detail.

Prevulcanised natural rubber latex is manufactured by a special process which produces concentrates particularly suitable for dipping applications. Vulcanisation is not required, and hence there is normally no need to consider vulcanising recipes or the time and temperature of cure. Other important qualities are:

Potential users are often put off using water-based sprayable contact adhesives in their manufacturing and fabrication work because solvent-based solutions have a reputation for drying/bonding more rapidly. Although this is true in some cases, high-quality, 2 part sprayable water-based adhesives are certainly not slow to dry/bond. In addition, solvent-based adhesives contain high levels of VOCs, or volatile organic compounds. These VOC’s are released during the manufacturing process and present a hazard to process workers. Water based systems contain very low levels of VOC’s.

Flame-retardant additives are used in a wide variety of plastic products these days. You will find them in anything from consumer products to oil pipelines. Flame-retardant additives are important in the use and manufacturing of plastics because they help prevent the material from becoming a fuel which could worsen any possible outbreak of fire.

In the closing weeks of 2018, few people can comfortably predict how – in exact terms – Brexit will impact on the normal working regulations of any industry in years to come. The first thing to say is that should the UK secure the implementation period that has been much-vaunted by the government from March 2019, nothing will immediately change. So, this means that anyone who purchases textiles that meet the current EU regulations will be able to do so with full confidence until 2021 at minimum.