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NOVA Chemicals Corporation, a top American PE producer, unveiled not one but three new butene PE film polymer grades of the NOVAPOL® PF-Y818 series. The new material grades are aimed at better performance and higher output compared to conventional butene LLDPE. Alan Schrob, the company's group market leader, declared an up to 20% productivity increase with the new resin grades. "These gains lead to higher revenue per film line and could allow deferment of capital expenditures on new blown film lines," emphasized Schrob.
The new PF-Y818 polymer series has been created and expanded thanks to customer-oriented R&D at NOVA's Applied Research and Performance Applications centers in Calgary, Canada. While all these polymer grades boast equally high performance, they contain different additives — in line with varied needs of film extruders who focus on food packaging and collation shrink in particular, stretch film, trash bags or industrial liners.
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The increase in performance is due to improved polymer melt strength and, consequently, bubble stability at blown film plants. This allows for faster production and the need for LDPE being drastically cut down in blends and structures. The three new resin grades boast outstandingly balanced physical properties, among which exceptional clarity and low gels are notable. These polymer characteristics improve products' optical properties significantly over conventional butene-copolymerized LLDPE.
Schrob added that the new polymer grades would enable productivity improvements with no adverse effects on reliability and versatility, for which NOVAPOL polymers are traditionally renowned.
