Bucking the trend

A massive increase in visitor numbers over the last ICE Europe show of 27%, and in exhibitors of 20% was recorded by organiser Mack Brooks Exhibitions, which is all the more impressive given the economic situation. A total of 5,350 trade visitors travelled to the MOC exhibition centre in Munich from 63 countries to discover the latest products and services for paper, film and foil converting.

Chairman of Mack Brooks Stephen Brooks said: “In difficult economic times when most trade shows are declining by 5, 10 or even 20%, it is remarkable that ICE Europe should have achieved such growth in visitor numbers in 2009.” And with 45% of the exhibitors coming from outside Germany, this was truly an international show.

Exhibiting for the first time at ICE Europe was Beardow Adams, which launched three new hotmelt pressure sensitive adhesives at the show. Pressen 1968 is a self-adhesive tape formulation with high adhesion to difficult surfaces; Pressen 2007 is a self-adhesive label formulation giving low staining at high temperatures; and Pressen 2024 is a self-adhesive label formulation giving easy-peel labelstock. “Pressen 2007 went through market trials, and was found to have excellent adhesion at high coat weights and zero staining,” said Stuart Wetherall, strategic marketing director. “It can be used in many label applications, and is suitable for high speed labelling machines.”

Another company presenting its innovative speciality adhesives for protective applications was Collano. The focus on the company’s stand was on adhesives that are resistant to high and low temperatures, as well as chemicals. Collano’s ‘safety adhesives’ offer solutions in the fields of smart cards, RFID, security and hologram labels, safety seals, as well as smart packaging and trademark protection. This also includes adhesive applications in the domain of concealed or encrypted security features.

The adhesives can fulfil special requirements, for example the company’s low temperature adhesives adhere instantly to cold surfaces, and offer long-term adhesion in deep-freeze environments. The most recent developments in hot temperature adhesives include a hotmelt that exhibits particularly strong adhesion on substrates that are difficult to bond.

Flexibility

Alpha Converting took a larger stand at the show to exhibit both its Alphatwin slitter rewinder and the latest version of its Alphaspool RSM, an off-line system that can run roll to spool, spool to spool or spool to roll, providing flexibility in one compact machine. “This is a new development for adhesive tapes,” said David Smith, sales manager, who was on the stand.

“Customers want longer lengths, so there are not so many production stops, and this is the advantage the new spooler has.” Mr Smith said that it runs at 150m/min and can spool in a variety of patterns on paper cores or customer spools. It can be equipped with accessories for winding products from 0.5mm wide up to 40mm wide.

The EasyCoat series systems were unveiled at ICE Europe by Valco Melton. These are suitable for coating cold PVA adhesives, EVAs and pressure sensitive glues. As the name implies, EasyCoat slot die extrusion systems are simple to set up and run, and have low coat weights. They are said to supply excellent repeatability.

The NewEdge doctoring system from AkeBoose Graphic Products for gravure printing is said to be ‘the next generation’ of patented doctor blade holder systems. It offers extreme holder straightness, vibration-free doctoring and reduction of excessive wear at cylinder ends, according to the company.

The combination of an aluminium profile and a rubber blade clamping system makes the NewEdge holder ‘absolutely ink tight’ and flexible against the gravure cylinder, says the company. Customers are said to have reported ‘longer print runs due to less wear at cylinder ends’, ‘better results in printing’ and ‘quick and easy blade changes’.

UK company Just Rollers, winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2009, was at the show to launch its new high performance nip roller covering, Ultra Dynamic. This is designed to meet the demands of the most modern high speed, high pressure, high temperature continuous process lines.

Ultra Dynamics is a polymer development from Just Rollers that provides products with high heat resistance, high abrasion resistance and resilience. The forerunner of this new product, Super Dynamic, has been widely used in many industries including gravure and flexographic printing, tissue embossing and BOPP film manufacture. “We are confident that Ultra Dynamic will have a dramatic uptake in our served markets,” said Dr Geoff Davis, MD of Just Rollers.