Interpack 2023: SIPA's turnkey systems for large formats

2023-07-24 2:52 min Bottles and containers, Filling and aseptic

SIPA has an unrivalled offering in machines that produce and fill large PET containers. These include the SFL Maxi linear stretch-blow molding machines (one of which is on the SIPA stand at Interpack making 20-L oil bottles) and SincroBloc systems that seamlessly integrate blowing with BigFill filling systems, as well as robots for handling large formats. The company also has a team of designers that it can put at the disposal of its customers to help create the containers they need for any application. Furthermore, SIPA can engineer and produce the molds to make the containers, and the preforms too.

Designed to optimize logistics

On stand 13B62 at Interpack, SIPA has an SFL Maxi 1 unit producing a 20-L vegetable oil bottle that it designed itself. The bottle is stackable: the 77-mm neck fits inside the hollow in the base of the bottle on top, and the base is contoured to nestle into the shoulders of the bottle underneath. Also extremely important is that SIPA has designed the bottle for optimal top load strength, as well as stability.

The container has a square cross-section, so little space is lost in storage and display. And of course, despite its strength, it is light – just 550 g – which makes for lower transport costs as well as ease of handling. Once it is full of oil, the total weight is getting on for 15 kg, which is quite a lot, but the highly ribbed walls help with handling.

This application is an excellent demonstration of a key SIPA strength: its ability to understand the needs of the customer and develop a container that meets all their requirements.

Equipment for all along the line

Visitors to the SIPA stand can also watch videos of the company’s full range of equipment for production of large containers, as well as solutions for downstream equipment, all the way through to palletization. A multilayer pallet on the stand will actually show how high stackable containers such as the 20-L oil bottles can go.

Outputs from SincroBlocs account for all tastes. While rotary types can work at speeds of up to 54,000 small and medium-sized bottles per hour, a system matching an SFL Maxi with a BigFill volumetric gravity-filling monobloc can produce and fill something like 4000 12-L containers every hour. SincroBloc systems can handle all bottle formats on the market.

Very clean

SincroBloc systems excel with their simplicity and hygiene. There is no need for rinsing between blowing and filling, no need for external conveying systems, and total protection from the outside environment from the moment the preform enters the feed shoot until the filled and sealed bottle emerges, ready for wrapping.

On SIPA systems with integrated PET preform and bottle production, various options are now available to maintain the cleanliness of the preforms between the injection moulding machine and the stretch-blow moulding unit.

(Photo credit: SIPA)

Every application catered for

In its own laboratories, SIPA can do molding trials, and it can also do all types of relevant mechanical tests on prototype containers – top load tests, drop tests, implosion tests, burst test and more. It can design the optimal preform, it can even provide independent advice on the best resin to use.

This unique offering applies just as much to large containers as it does to smaller bottles and jars – all the way up to 40-liter beer kegs and even beyond. And SIPA can apply its expertise to containers for all sorts of applications as well as all sizes: water, beer, vegetable oils, mineral oils, detergents, chemicals…

(Photo credit: SIPA)

Global satisfaction

Customers all around the world already benefit from SIPA solutions for large containers. Not long ago, for example, SIPA helped an important producer of vegetable oil in Malaysia in its development of square, stackable containers in three different formats, 10, 20 and 25 liters. A critical point in the project was that the packaging had to be compatible with the customer’s existing production system (handling, filling, palletizing, and warehousing). SIPA designed the preforms for the containers to optimize the blowing process as well as the cooling in the base of the containers – critical to ensure the stackability of the containers on the pallets.

SIPA has also been particularly successful with the introduction of systems for large containers in China. One customer, for example, has adopted a complete SIPA solution for design and production of one-way 18-L bottles (each weighing 350 g), based on a preform injection molding machine and an SFL 2/2 (since rebranded as SFL Maxi 2, providing an output of over 900 bph. SIPA developed the designs for the preform and the bottle. For another Chinese customer producing 10-L hot-fill soy sauce containers, SIPA again developed the preform and bottle designs, and delivered equipment for an hourly output of 1100 containers.

SIPA at Interpack 2023: Hall 13, Stand B62

www.sipa.it