EDI Press Release

Extrusion processors and web converters now can carry out product-development and process testing without the high raw material costs and lost output of trial runs on their own commercial-scale equipment, it was announced today at K-2007 by Extrusion Dies Industries, LLC (EDI), which is exhibiting at Stand 02 / G06.

EDI has established three fully equipped processing laboratories that companies can rent for product development and test runs and even to “test-drive” certain new technologies.

“EDI is introducing its new processing labs at a time when outside trial-run facilities are increasingly scarce, and processors are forced to use their own full-scale production lines at the cost of lost output and high levels of material waste,” said Christopher W. Curtin, executive vice president of sales and marketing.  “These companies don’t have to be EDI customers to take advantage of our facilities, and they can carry out their lab work in the strictest confidence, affirmed in a nondisclosure agreement that we sign with every company that rents our labs.”

The laboratories are located at EDI’s world headquarters in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, U.S.A. and are for these processes:

• Cast film extrusion. This facility provides an opportunity to test options in resins, multilayer structures, feedblock settings, and other variables.
  EDI’s coextrusion line produces film in the 2 to 32 mil range.  Components include one 0.75-in. (19 mm) and two 1.0-in (25 mm) extruders, an 8-in. (200-mm) die, 3- and 5-layer feedblocks, and a 10-in. (250-mm) wide roll face.  Also available is innovative “layer-multiplier” tooling that yields dozens of layers in film of standard overall thickness.
  
• Extrusion coating and laminating. This small but complete converting line makes it possible to experiment with various polymers, substrates, and web structures and test out EDI’s systems for fast width changes and edge bead control. The coating line accommodates web widths up to 380 mm and line speeds up to 122 m/min.
  Besides a 2.0-in. (51 mm), 28:1 L/D extruder and EDI’s Ultraflex coating die, the lab includes: single-position brake unwind, corona pre-treater, coating nip (317.5 mm chill roll), two spare chill rolls, air knife, post-conditioning rolls, edge slitters, single-position winder, and two-loop water recirculation system.
• Slot die coating. Customers can use this facility to test alternative fluid formulations, coating/substrate combinations, and other parameters without tying up their own equipment or using large quantities of raw materials. Practitioners of roll coating can explore the advantages of slot die coating before investing in a commercial-scale system.

EDI offers two slot-die alternatives: Ultracoat® II or V adjustable-lip coating heads with support system and a range of lip inserts; or WetWare™, a complete trial-size coating module incorporating a Liberty® fixed-lip coating head.  The coating line accommodates substrates with a maximum width of 12 in. (300 mm) and rolls with nominal 3-in. (75 mm) ID cores, maximum unwound diameters of 12 in. (300 mm), and maximum rewound diameters of 14 in. (350 mm). Other components include four different fluid pumps, a polished chrome-plated steel backing roll, and three hot air dryers.