Covestro has developed a new heat-resistant coating for monomaterial stand-up pouches produced with SABIC's PE/BOPE technology. The coating facilitates large-scale production of BOPE-based monomaterial stand-up pouches on horizontal form-fill-seal (HFFS) lines. Single-stream recycling of flexible plastic bags is thus simplified. Covestro is supplying key ingredients, raw materials and know-how for the development of heat-resistant coatings. After final improvements, the product will eventually be jointly marketed.
Conventional plastic packaging consists of multi-material laminates that are difficult to recycle. An increasingly popular option is mono-material packaging made from plastics such as BOPE. BOPE can be used to make flexible packaging in which all layers are made of PE polymers. This packaging can then be recycled in a single-sort material stream. However, BOPE-based stand-up pouches are difficult to produce on FFS equipment due to their low heat resistance. To solve this problem, Covestro has developed a heat-resistant coating for mono-BOPE-based stand-up pouches.