From the fields of plastics technology, container dress technology, plus packing and palletising technology, Krones AG, Neutraubling, Germany, will at the interpack 2014 be showcasing a whole series of innovations and design enhancements. All of them geared to creating even lighter, more attractive, consumer-friendlier packages, plus energy-economical, eco-friendly and affordable production operations designed to reduce the total cost of ownership.In the field of plastics technology, Krones has developed a new base design for PET containers that features better resistance to heat and pressure coupled with good stability during transport. In comparison to classical hotfill, filling this bottle in the NitroHotfill process enables lower bottle weights to be used, even at high line speeds. In actual operation, the NitroHotfill process, which is used with fruit juices and other sensitive beverages, enables bottle weights down to an exceptionally light 15.5 grams to be achieved.
But it's not only with sensitive beverages like fruit juices that the thrust towards lightweight containers is being progressed. For carbonated beverages, too, Krones will be exhibiting a true lightweight, one that weighs 30 to 45 per cent less than comparable PET containers on the market: the "PET lite 9.9 carbonated", a prize-winning study based on the NitroPouch concept. This 500-millilitre bottle, weighing a mere 9.9 grams, scores highly in terms of low material costs and suitability for use at high line speeds.
Deployment of a square 500-millilitre PET bottle weighing just 12.5 grams for product-friendly aseptic filling is made possible by the development of the innovative technology featured in the Contiform AseptBloc, and by the container’s own design, which is particularly persuasive in terms of the bottle’s haptics, and is based on a square-rounded cross-section and a lightweight 33-millimetre neck finish.
