SIPA Smartcoat® offers barrier performance both for Oxygen and CO2.

Barrier Improvement Factor (B.I.F.) depends on the coating thickness applied on the container external surface.
SIPA Smartcoat® solution is conceived to produce high performance barrier containers and consists on a dip coating technology, where two layers of proprietary organic coatings are applied onto the external surface of a PET, OPP and PLA container. The oxygen barrier may be increased by up to 12 times that of traditional solutions, whilst the carbon dioxide barrier may be increased by 2 to 4 times, depending on the level of carbonation and the characteristics of the product bottled.



• The first coating (base coat) is water based and gives the barrier performances to the container.

• The latter (top coat) is a mechanical and thermal protection to the inner layer.

• Both layers are applied by means of a dipping and spinning technology: the thickness is regulated by adjusting the spin velocity.

• After a flash off into Infrared and hot air ovens, both coatings are UV cured.

• After coating, the containers pass directly to the filling phase which may be carried out by hot filling, aseptic processing, tunnel pasteurizing or with an ultra-clean system.

HIGH PERFORMANCE

The Smartcoat® coating system guarantees a production of up to 36,000 bottles per hour with a 100% coating efficiency (compared with a loss of 35% in the case of spray coating).

• Unique coating resisting tunnel pasteurization.

• Organic coating (flexible).

• No delamination (vs. multilayer).

• No cracking (vs. plasma).

• Excellent barrier performance for oxygen and CO2.

• Compatible with aseptic (peracetic acid and line lubricants) and hot filling lines.


FLEXIBILITY

• No constraints on bottle size (up to 5 l) as well as line speed.

• No constraints on bottle shape, flexibility with external shape and sizes; narrow neck & jars.

• Layer thickness can be adjusted: barrier properties sized to different product & shelf life requirements (tailored).

• cost effective on target product application.

• Quick CHANGEOVER and SET UP TIMES

SIMPLICITY

• It is a high speed “painting” line. Painting process is a well tested and widely-used technology in different fields of applications and materials.

• It’s a dipping technology (not a plasma technology) therefore very simple.

• No daily/weekly maintenance.

SAFETY

• SmartCoat is a smooth & flexible organic polymer applied on the bottle external surface, while plasma is a rigid inorganic mineral applied on the bottle internal surface.

• No food contact (external coating).

• Safe technology (no micro-waves), extremely consistent results trough all the distribution and logistic chain.

SUSTAINABILITY

• Recyclability for bottle to bottle even with 100% barrier bottles (plasma coatings have limitations, multilayer technology are not recyclable).

• Easy management of scraps of liquid resins: companies dealing with unsaturated polyester resins can use coating scraps in mix with pure resins.

• Absence of dangerous components in coating resins (if compared to plasma coating technologies with acetilene gas or Siloxane and Silazane).

• Limited energy consumption (160 KW avg. absorbed power for 30,000 bph line).

• absence of high vacuum technology

• design of heating technology aimed to a strong energy saving (heat exchangers, no electrical heating in hot air ovens)