Expanded product range and enhanced film quality of BOPP production line
SRF Industries Ltd. (SRF), located in Rayong, Thailand, successfully expanded its film product portfolio by upgrading one of its BOPP film stretching lines with Brückner’s state-of-the-art Inline coating technology (ILC).
For Brückner Servtec, who designed and engineered the inline coating unit, the completed project marks the first retrofitted inline coater in Thailand - a significant step in meeting the growing demand for innovative coating solutions within Southeast Asia’s biaxially oriented film industry.
Futureproof high barrier films for circular economy
The project focused on retrofitting the inline coating unit in the 5-layer BOPP plant, commissioned in 2021. The cost-efficient ILC technology is a (water-based) wet chemical coating of plastic films with a primer directly during film production. As the process occurs between the machine direction orientation (MDO) and transverse direction orientation (TDO), adjusting the surface properties with the ILC allows improved converting steps.
Therefore, the benefits are clear:
- Long-term stable high surface energy (substitution of Corona or Flame treatment)
- Improved recyclability due to mono-material structures
- Advanced film properties like metallization for barrier improvement (AI / AIOx) or improved printability
- Easy operation, as the ILC is fully integrated into the IMC system of the production line, i.e. all data is transparent
- Well proven safety and design concept for each application
Mr. Monojit Bandyopadhyay, Senior Vice President Operations & Country Head at SRF Industries (Thailand) Ltd., shared the background of the project: “ILC technology was presented by the Brückner Team to Mr Prashant Mehra – President & CEO - SRF LTD & Mr Hari Kishore Singh, Executive Vice President & Head Global Operations where they were convinced that this is the right technology for higher barrier films & circular economy in the future and decided to go ahead and successfully upgraded two of their machines with ILC Technology together with Brückner Servtec - one each in India and Thailand.”
In addition to the retrofitted inline coater the BOPP line received an external airing and zone separation in the TDO preheating zone to enhance thermal efficiency and improve overall product quality by ensuring uniform temperature distribution and reducing the risk of defects.
Efficient cooperation enabled timely line re-start
Due to a mixed and professional SRF and Brückner team on site, the commissioning went very smoothly, enabling the time schedule to be met and the line to be put back into operation as planned.
Regarding the project in Thailand, Mr. Monojit Bandyopadhyay expressed his sentiments, stating: “The start-up with ILC was very smooth and we could complete the planned run at the decided speed without any breaks. This was possible due to excellent preparations prior to start-up by both SRF Thailand & Brückner team which makes the 1st trial run successful.”
The two Brückner Servtec project managers, Sebastian Salentin and Gerald Huber add: “We are more than happy to have contributed to this important milestone of SRF with our competencies and knowledge. We especially thank our colleagues from our platform company Brueckner Group Asia-Pacific, who have carried out the installation quickly and professionally on the customer’s site - true to our core value ‘think global, act local’.”
We would like to thank SRF Limited for the trust they have placed in us so far and look forward to further joint projects in the future!
