Blow molding project – Export mold

Posted on : January 9, 2025，By GREFEE

With the advancement of global industrialization and modernization, environmental pollution has become a increasingly serious problem, which severely impair human health and ecosystems. To reduce environmental pollution and protect the ecological environment, people start to concern the development and application of degradable materials; Those materials have good performance of degradability.

From the past to the present, many start-up companies have innovated in sustainable packaging field, and their main innovating direction towards raw materials. These materials are sustainable, non-toxic and naturally degradable, for example, Avantium adapts shrimp shells to make alternatives to foam plastics, and they also innovates a sugar-based containers for beer and soda water, and seaweed belts that can be used to make sauces, etc.

About the client:

“Our vision is to break the the reliance on oil industry, but to set a new packaging standard which is remarkable, competitive and sustainable”said Insiya Jafferjee, CEO of Shellworks.

Shellworks team consists of scientists, senior engineers and professional designers, and they all want to contribute to solving the environmental pollution problem through their professional plastic knowledge.

Technology: blow molding

Post finish: texture

Material: Vivomer

About project：

Before this project, the client has completed financing of total US$6.2 million, however, which is far from enough for a biotechnology start-up company. They connected with us at the beginning of this year, and wanted us to help achieve the mold manufacturing and trial production plan for the whole project. This Project contains 4 sub-projects, including total 7 sets of molds, and multiple products with capacities ranging from 30ml to 500ml.

About material：

The client launched a new material named Vivomer,which is a substance similar to fat extracted from cell of bacterial, who generates from microorganisms in marine and soil. This substance has property like natural polyester,and has advantage that it degrades after the product is discarded. Co-founder Amir Afsha said: Vivomer comes from microorganisms and finally  returns to the microorganisms.

Application of degradable materials:

Medical field: degradable materials are vitally applied to medical devices and drug packaging, for example, surgical sutures, which can avoid postoperative suture removal, avoid second operation by implanting degradable implants, which can save much more time and money.

Agricultural field: degradable materials have broad prospects in the agricultural field, for example, degradable thermal film can reduce land pollution and resource waste, meanwhile, degradable packing materials can extend the food shelf-life.

Environmental protection: degradable materials play a significant role in environmental protection, for example, using degradable materials in our daily-used plastic bags and disposable food containers can effectively reduce the plastic waste,and also reduce ocean plastic pollution.

Design for blow mold：

Blow molded products have relative simple structure, and its mold designing don’t require structures like slide or lifter in injection molding. Blow mold mainly consist of 2 mold cores, with cutting and inserts surrounding mold cores. Surface requirements are the key requirements for most blow molded products, like requirements on the height of the clip line, the depth of the letters, and the clarity of the patterns.Therefore, the dimensions between 2 blow mold cores need to be really accurate.Thus, when designing blow mold, we will design precise positioning devices like jaws and guide pillars to ensure the mold dimensions meet the design requirements.

Material selection for blow mold：

Material selection for blow mold is similar to that for injection mold, mainly based on requirements on material characteristics and product appearance. In the material selection of these molds, we used different materials in different areas, choosing ASSAB Swedish S136 (HRC48-52) for mold cores, as material S136 is relative pure and tiny, and has good performance of corrosion resistance and polishing properties. As for material for cutting areas, which should select according to wall thickness, because the cutting is designed for cutting the material off, must ensure the cutting be sharp enough and the shape be almost triangular.Therefore, we suggest carbide alloy material for cutting.

Venting and cooling for blow mold:

Just as its name implies, blow molding is that control the plastic inside mold and blow the plastic into required shape through gas. We can see, there’s huge venting volume for blow mold, which requires venting designing at the bottom of mold and also adding venting grooves on both sides of the parting line. Venting and cooling are vitally important for products requiring high polishing performance. Once venting is not smooth or cooling is not even, the blowing process is not efficient, then cause surface problems like roughness, dents or unclear letters and patterns.

Details:

For bottle-like products, must be very careful for the external parting lines. Therefore, mold manufacturing details are the vital aspect. We optimized the processing flow in manufacturing process. For the clamping line areas, we did rough machining residue firstly, and did precision machining after core assembly testing, finally added entire texture to ensure the clamping lines meet the requirements.

Mold making and trial-production:

Compare to other molds, making blow molds are relatively easier and faster. The lead time for manufacturing blow molds is usually 10-15 days, differing in the mold size. Before produce these products which are made from environmentally friendly materials, we already have batch production experience for biodegradable environmentally friendly materials, including biodegradable materials synthesized from wheat straws and corn straws, and also from sugar cane. Therefore, the trial production for this projects was really successful. We spent only 20 days to accomplish the mold manufacturing and trial production, and provided 20 qualified products to our client for testing.

Product inspection:

The inspection of blow molded products mainly covers following several aspects: one is sealing testing, the second is appearance inspection, and tnhe third is wall thickness testing. Sealing testing can be completed in productive process. In batch production, products are going to the assembly line, where the testing devices will conduct sealing tests and pressure tests on each product; Appearance inspection requires personnel observation and verification according according to different requirements, and wall thickness testing also needs manual testing. We usually conduct comprehensive testing for the first 5 products from each batch to ensure that all wall thickness at each position meets the requirements.

Packing:

After getting approval for shipping from the client, we did preparation working according to the mold operating flow. Firstly, we recorded the confirmed key dimensions of the molds, then disassemble each part of the mold and clean them, do rust cleaning on the mold surface and polish it, and finally spray anti-rust painting on standard parts such as guide pillars before assembling.

Shipping：

Shipping depends on client’s demands. Of course, our packing also changes based on different transportation conditions.In sea-shipping, we usually pack the molds in vacuum bags to avoid seawater corrosion during the long time sea shipping.

Grefee’s Blow Molding Capabilities-Equipment:

Grefee has manufacturing capabilities for blow molds in various materials and specifications, the specifications of our blow molding equipment ranges from 1ML to 60L, and we have dust-free plant to meet the production requirements from all kinds of fields.

Grefee’s Blow Molding Capabilities- Material:

With the extensive application of blow molded products in various industries, our technical application is getting more and more improved, and we have produced various products from fields of life, industry, medicine, and automobile; Materials we can process not only includes blow molding materials, but also latest degradable blow molding materials on the market.

Latest technology on degradable materials：

Nowadays market, the most technologically mature degradable materials include PLA, PLA+bamboo fiber and PLA+wheat straw.

PLA: it is a new type renewable degradable material, which is made from raw materials extracted from renewable plant resources (corn, cassava). PLA has very excellent properties, such as very good biocompatibility, glossiness, transparency, hand feeling and heat resistance, and also very good flame resistance and UV resistance. Now PLA materials can be used in extrusion, injection molding, blow molding and spinning fields.Such as injection molded children’s tableware, blow molded beverage bottles, and spinning products like paper diapers.

PLA+Bamboo fiber: it is a new type of green and environmentally friendly composite material made from PLA and bamboo fiber through special technology. It is a kind of fully degradable material, which can meet food grade requirements, and has main characteristics are environmental protection, heat resistance, and high strength; Now it’s commonly used in injection molding, compression molding, and extrusion molding, and it is usually used to make children’s toys, daily necessities, home appliance enclosures, etc.

PLA+Wheat straw: wheat straws are extracted from the stems and leaves after wheat mature.Products made from PLA+wheat straws can be fully degraded within 3 months.This material can be used in injection molding and compression molding to make various products. The toughness and durability characteristics are suitable for many kinds of daily commodity, such as disposable chopsticks and food containers.

Words in the end：

The application of degradable materials is the most effective way to reduce environmental pollution. Studying and using degradable materials can effectively reduce plastic waste, soil and water pollution, which can greatly protect environment.With the development of degradable technology, we believe that degradable materials will play a greater role in various fields in the near future, and create a cleaner and healthier living environment for mankind.

Now there’s still problems to solve for degradable materials, such as problems of degrading slowly or the degradation is toxic. Grefee will move forward with all innovative companies with offering our best quotation and fastest delivery guarantee to accelerate their research and development in degradable materials

After fully understand the information and requirements from our client, we provide our client with the best payment approach, just charging the mold manufacturing cost, and leaving all the rest paid in shipping stage after mold verification. If you are also a start-up R&D company, or maybe you need new materials to be verified in the blow molding process, please feel free to contact us at the quotation stage, Grefee’s engineers will provide you with manufacturability assessment for your products.

evote to environmental protection. Cheers for faith!!!

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