Research Lab captures significant cost savings and productivity gains

Situation

Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) APC Center for Packaging Innovation laboratory in Western New York, conducts cutting-edge projects targeting environmentally friendly and sustainable polymer systems. Through this work, they utilize a wide range of polymers such as LDPE, HDPE, PP, PBA, PHA, PLA and others. They also perform trials to recover polymer-based reclaim such as multi-layer packaging. Their goal being to advance knowledge in pursuit of sustainable packaging.

Joint collaboration between Dyna-Purge and the RIT team of Colby Armstrong, Tyler Reichert, Kunal Burarak led by Yvan Hernandez-Charpak, determined the current use of LDPE was both ineffective and inefficient for purging their twin-screw extrusion and blown film lines. Most often polymer residue or filler/additive contaminants were left in the process system. The RIT team led the effort to identify a more effective and efficient commercial purging product that could be used for purging transitions between trials as well as for safe start-up and shut-down operations.

Solution

They identified Dyna-Purge L grade – a newly developed compound, as ideal for their application and requirements. Conclusive trials confirmed their choice.

Results

• Successfully achieved thorough cleaning of both their 20mm and 32mm compounding lines
• Material consumption calculation resulted in a 42% use reduction
• Downtime recovery calculation showed a 44% improvement
• Overall cost reduction calculation identified as much as 69% improvement with a 34% average improvement across all purging