Millad® 3988 Clarifying Agent Central To New Scanbech Product Launch

Scanbech Group, the Danish Specialist moulder of bottles, closures and tablet containers has selected a clarified polypropylene resin, utilising Millad® 3988 clarifiying agent, for three important new products being launched this year.

The new products, which are being moulded at Scanbech’s Runcorn facility in the United Kingdom, are 200 ml and 300 ml bottles for the T-Zone range of antibacterial cleansing lotion products typically found in UK stores, a 300 ml bottle for a hand wash product, and a 270 ml bottle for desert sauce. The products will be distributed through leading UK retail outlets. Millad® 3988, from Milliken Chemical, was selected for these extrusion blow moulded PP applications primarily because it offered the best clarity and gloss, and because it presented no organoleptic issues, an essential characteristic for food applications.

According to Scanbech Sales Manager, Martin Myhre: “We process a wide range of materials but following tests we concluded that Millad® 3988 gave a number of key advantages in these applications. In addition to giving a clear, glossy bottle, the clarified PP offered a high level of productivity. It was less expensive than either PVC or PETG and, while similar in cost to HDPE, it provided greater clarity combined with easier processing.”

Also important was that the clarified PP is environmentally friendly and offered the possibility of delivering a mono-material product, as the bottle, closure and label are all moulded in PP. Furthermore the polymer allows hot-fill which is critical for applications such as desert sauce.

“Working with the Milliken technical team and Millad® 3988 has given us tremendous confidence in offering clarified PP as an option to our customers,” says Myhre. “And, although clear polypropylene has been quicker to find its way onto the supermarket shelves in Europe than in the UK, we believe the material has an important place in the market.”

Milliken Chemical pioneered the breakthrough that improved the versatility of polyolefin’s and resulted in the development of the Millad® family of clarifying agents. By enhancing clarity and gloss, these unique additives have helped grow new markets by improving the appearance and appeal of polypropylene consumer products. Millad® is widely used in injection moulding, blow moulding and extrusion processes, for end-uses that range from house wares to medical devices to protective packaging applications.