dry lamination / solventless lamination

Plastic packaging has been widely used since the 1990s. In some developed countries, the amount of plastic packaging has reached 44% of the total packaging materials. Composite materials based on plastic films have become indispensable materials for modern commodity packaging. Composite process is an important means for manufacturing composite film materials. At present, there are commonly used methods of dry compounding, extrusion compounding, wet compounding, co-extrusion compounding and thermal compounding. China’s dry compound compounding and extrusion compounding are the most widely used. Dry compounding has the use of substrate range, product structure is diverse, composite material has high adhesive strength, high barrier properties, suitable for high temperature cooking, vacuum, low temperature refrigeration, preservation, color retention, taste protection and other broad areas. However, it has disadvantages such as high investment costs, high energy consumption, and unfavorable environmental protection due to solvent emissions.
The solventless composite process is a manufacturing technology that uses 100% binder to bond two substrates into a unified composite material under heat and pressure. This technology was developed on the basis of dry compounding in response to the rising cost of organic solvents caused by the oil crisis of the 1970s and the increasing global environmental protection requirements. The products produced by the solvent-free compounding process have high interfacial adhesion strength, and its applicable range is roughly equivalent to dry compounding. However, due to the solvent-free compounding process, the adhesives used do not contain solvents. During the production process, the solvent in the adhesive does not need to be dried and eliminated.