Extrusion International 3-2023

39 Extrusion International 3/2023 Corona Treatment for a Better Extrusion Quality One of Argentina’s leading extruders of mono- and multi-layer PE films, Dinpe SA, has installed Vetaphone corona technology at its plant in San Juan, in the west of the Argentina Republic. The family owned and managed business, which was established in 1987, specializes in the co-extrusion and printing of PE film for bags, wraparound labels, and synthetic stoppers for wine bottles. The company has a modern production facility that includes 8-color printing presses, fabricators, and laminators for high-quality work that is meets ISO 9001:2015 standards. The end products are sold and marketed under the brand name Flexibles Plastinos. I t was the issue of quality that first led Dinpe to contact Vetaphone. German Gonzalez, the Plant Manag- er in San Juan explained: “We pride ourselves on the quality of work we supply to our customers and were having difficulty with this because of the poor reliability of the corona treaters fitted to our extruders.” Af - ter meeting Carlos Sanchez of Con- exsud, Vetaphone’s representative inArgentina, and reviewing both the background of the Danish manufac- turer and its support network as well as the technical performance of its technology, the decision was made to retrofit a Vetaphone corona treat - er to one of Dinpe’s extruders. The Vetaphone technology in- stalled at the San Juan plant in- cludes a VE2C-A (PF4-5) corona treater station of 2320mm width powered by an iCorona 2UL 10kW generator fitted with an iHP300 transformer. The system is con- trolled via Vetaphone’s iCC7 opera- tor panel, and the system is venti- lated by an RD65UR blower fan. “The result has more than met our expectations – it has way surpassed them, and we can now produce our coextruded polyolefin films with confidence that the quality will not vary. In fact, we are so impressed that our forward plan tis to fit Vetaphone technology to all our other extrud- ers,” said Gonzalez. With the compa- ny’s declared plans for an ambitious growth target, this will translate into good business for Vetaphone, as Ted Wolski, the company’s Sales Manag- er for South America noted. “It is always great to hear compli- ments like these and especially when it’s a retrofit - this highlights the comparison between Vetaphone technology and that of other corona manufacturers and makes the case for production efficiency based on quality. We are delighted to hear that Dinpe has confidence in Veta - phone products and support, and much of this is down to Carlos and his team at Conexsud,” said Wolski. With its products used for various applications including soft drinks, beers, mineral water preserves and heat-shrinkable sleeves for pallets and demijohns, Dinpe has built up a diverse customer portfolio over the past 35 years. Its blown film ex - truders produce a range of shrink- able polyethylene films, classifying each type of film according to cus - tomer needs in a variety of widths, thicknesses, shrinkage conditions, in glass tone or color, and with or without printing. The plant in San Juan, which cov- ers some 3,000sqm, produces about 5,000 tons/year and employs around 60 people, uses only top-quality virgin raw material (generally low- density polyethylene), which, when subjected to a tubular blown extru- sion process, produces films of op - timum quality, gloss, transparency, resistance, and constant thickness. As Gonzalez concluded: “We are very proud of our company and the work we produce here. Our busi- ness philosophy is based on satis- fying all our customers’ needs and adapting and growing our capac- ity to new requirements. We rec- ognize our people as our greatest asset and invest time and money in training, teamwork, and self- management. If you add in the best technology, like Vetaphone, you have a recipe for success.” Vetaphone A/S Fabriksvej 11, 6000 Kolding, DK www.vetaphone.com Vetaphone’s VE2C-A corona treater fitted to one of the blown-film extruders at Dinpe SA’s production plant in San Juan, Argentina