At Fachpack, Heidelberg and Solenis will be presenting a jointly developed process for barrier coatings on flexible paper packaging for food, beverages, cosmetics and certain non-food items.
Flexible paper packaging is predicted to grow by 4.5 per cent annually until the end of the decade. An expert survey conducted by the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University Heilbronn (DHBW) and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG confirms this trend. As the head of the study, Prof Dr Carsten Kortum, says, „it is a matter of not a short-term trend, but a profound change, driven by new legal requirements, increased environmental awareness in conjunction with changes in consumer behaviour and technological innovations“.
The challenge, however, is to find suitable materials that act as a barrier for water, water vapour, hot and cold liquids, oils and fats on the one hand and fulfil the sustainability principle of a circular economy on the other. So far, however, paper packaging has reached its technical limits here. The process jointly developed by barrier coating manufacturer Solenis and Heidelberg now enables an industrial, partial and therefore cost-effective application of barrier coatings on paper packaging.
As a system integrator, Heidelberg has integrated Solenis technology into the web flexo printing process with the Boardmaster. The barriers are installed during the running process. transferred to the paper web in register only at the necessary points. The aim of the collaboration is to utilise the advantages of the individual assemblies of the Boardmaster for the application of Solenis bar varnishes in order to make the process technology quickly and easily available to packaging producers.
„Economic innovations are crucial if we are to replace plastic packaging with recyclable or compostable paper packaging. Through the cooperation with Solenis for the development of lacquers and coatings and the inline production of coated paper packaging, Heidelberg is underpinning its claim to be a strong driver of paperisation. We are thus acting as a full-service provider of end-to-end solutions in the growth market of mass production of fibre-based packaging solutions.“
Dr David Schmedding, Chief Technology and Sales Officer at Heidelberg
Source: Heidelberg
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen and Solenis at Fachpack 2025: Hall 4A, Stand 342
