Arkema launches Lotader® 4613 extrudable adhesive for high speed lamination of reverse printed films

October 2015

Lotader® 4613 adhesive completes Arkema’s range of tie layers designed for the lamination of most difficult packaging films, such as oxygen barrier films used for snack foods and pet foods.

Flexible films converters are facing more and more challenges to design new, flexible packaging films while maintaining high output and positive production economics. It is well known in the industry that reverse printing films are extremely difficult to bond in multilayer structures and can require additional steps, such as priming or reducing line speed.

By avoiding both the use of primers and dramatic speed decreases, Lotader® 4613 adhesive enables significant cost saving. In addition, Lotader® 4613 adhesive can be extruded at temperatures as much as 20°C lower than the previous generation of Lotader® 4503 and, therefore, generates some important energy savings. Thanks to a production process that enhances its adhesive properties, Lotader® 4613 adhesive is able to bond unprimed reverse printing films to metallized films at lamination speed that could not be reached with the previous generation of Lotader® 4503 tie layer.

Comparison of the performance of Lotader® 4613 adhesive with the previous generation of Lotader® extrudable adhesive.

Comparison of the technical characteristics of Lotader® 4613 adhesive with the previous generation of Lotader® extrudable adhesive.

Converters using Lotader® 4613 adhesive can choose between the possibility to either increase the bond strength between the laminated films or increase their productivity while keeping an acceptable bond strength. The melting temperature of Lotader® 4613 adhesive, close to 100°C, enables improved thermal resistance of the final package structure.

Lotader® 4613 adhesive completes Arkema’s tie layer range for extrusion lamination:

• Lotader® 4503: general purpose ready-to-use tie layer for unprimed films.
• Lotader® 3210: general purpose ready-to-use tie layer for primed films.
• Lotader® 4210: general purpose concentrate to be blended with LDPE.
• Lotader® 3410 and Lotader® 3430: high performance concentrates to be blended with LDPE.

Arkema’s range of Lotader® reactive terpolymers and Lotryl® acrylate copolymers offers a wide scope of solutions for the flexible packaging industry. Arkema supplies Evasin® EVOH barrier resins, Lotryl® Bestpeel seal-peel resins, Orevac® grafted polyolefins tie layers.