Milacron expands co-injection product suite

Milacron Holdings Corp., an industrial technology company serving the plastics processing industry announced that it has expanded its co-injection offering. The standard Milacron Co-injection System offered today under the Kortec Complete product name utilizes the industry’s most advanced co-injection technology, and consists of a co-injection injection molding machine, a Kortec hot runner and on-demand co-injection engineering support for advanced integration and run off services guaranteeing successful application and part design. Milacron offers turnkey systems under the Kortec Complete product name. By working alongside our customers and internally developing a solution for customers with existing injection molding machines, Milacron is pleased to announce Kortec Connect, the next product in our proprietary co-injection product suite. Kortec Connect incorporates a molders existing injection molding machine using Mold-Masters innovative and proven E-Multi secondary injection unit in combination with a Kortec co-injection hot runner. Milacron has over 30 years of co-injection experience and over 100 systems in the field, 7,000 drops across a variety of market landscapes producing 12 billion parts in 18 countries. No other co-injection technology offering has the same experience.

Steve Morris, President Milacron Systems explained, “We have perfected the plastic industry’s first and only co-injection retrofit offering; the Kortec Connect System from Milacron.” Morris added, “We’ve combined the 30 plus years of experience from our Kortec co-injection melt delivery technology and utilized the highly successful Mold-Masters E-Multi secondary injection unit to offer customers a cost-effective entry into the high growth co-injection molding market. Kortec Connect can be used on any qualified brand of injection molding machine, it’s totally machine agnostic, provided it has the required performance specifics to mold the parts. The Kortec Connect offering has been used successfully in molding coffee cups, caps, closures, personal care items, thinwall and medical parts and it can also be added to a PET monolayer system introducing the ability to mold barrier performs at a fraction of the cost while avoiding an investment in a dedicated PET co-injection press”.

Kortec Connect allows customers an opportunity to invest in co-injection at a lower capital cost and provides the added flexibility to move co-injection technology throughout their facility, eliminating the need for a dedicated co-injection work cell. Kortec Connect earns its name because it’s a truly “plug and play” conversion. All of the software algorithms and setup is contained in the Kortec Connect controller. A molder simply needs to mount the E-Multi unit in their press, add some simple communications with the machine and start molding.

Oliver Lindenberg Mold-Masters President, Americas added, “We have been connecting with numerous customers that have full fleets of standard injection molding machines, typically running monolayer applications. With market technology changes and plastic parts evolving, many of these same customers have expressed interest in entering the co-injection field and want to utilize their existing assets within their fleet. The Kortec Connect System provides them with the exact flexibility they need at a manageable cost”.

New Kortec Connect Solution

The Kortec Connect system offers customers the same patented, proprietary Kortec co-injection hot runner designs and combines it with Mold-Masters proprietary E-Multi secondary injection unit, allowing molders a cost-effective entry into co-injection molding. Milacron’s highly specialized co-injection engineers work hand in hand with customers to customize the Kortec Connect solution for their specific application. Our dedicated team of engineers collaborates with customers on their existing equipment via comprehensive system audits to optimize machine functionality. Once completed, our team of engineers personally ensures that the system is up and running with their new co-injection capabilities.

Kortec Complete Solution

Milacron will continue to offer the complete turnkey solutions under the Kortec Complete brand for customers looking to purchase the industry’s best complete co-injection system and generate the highest possible overall performance and output. Kortec Complete offers customers the simplicity of a complete co-injection cell with a customized premium F-Series injection molding machine with 2 shot capabilities built right into the machine and the Kortec hot runner melt delivery technology. With more complete co-injection systems in the field than all other competitors combined, Milacron is able to provide the industries’ best engineering, system and service support.

Milacron Co-injection Support and Service

As the industry leader in co-injection technology with over 30 years experience, Milacron knows what it takes to keep a co-injection system running at peak performance. Milacron offers a comprehensive service, support and dedicated spare parts program for all nozzle applications and key co-injection components ensuring prompt response and fulfillment when required. World-class post-sales service and support is a cornerstone of Milacron.

About Milacron Co-injection Technology

Milacron Co-injection Molding multi-layer technology now branded as Kortec Connect and Kortec Complete is designed to meet the plastic industry’s need for barrier technology that can be delivered with the same high-volume production efficiency and cycle time as a monolayer part. Milacron Co-injection molding addresses key needs in the industry, including the economical use of barrier materials, customizable barrier properties, precise barrier placement and uniform distribution. Kortec technology offers flexibility of barrier placement and distribution and the ability to mold features into a barrier part design that other processes such as thermoforming cannot.

Milacron Co-injection molding uses a proprietary, simultaneous co-injection process with every system. This process allows the cavity to be filled in exactly the same amount of time as a monolayer injection molded part. The “heart” of each system is the Co-injection melt delivery system featuring Kortec technology. The melt delivery system has separate streams (flow channels) for skin (the inner and outer layers) and core (the middle barrier layer) materials.

Milacron Co-injection molding’s patented, proprietary co-injection nozzle designs allow two different resins to be combined in a single 3-layer melt stream. Two flow streams are joined at each patented co-injection nozzle resulting in a single, combined 3-layer flow stream through each gate, into the mold cavities. The result is total control and the ability for customization of the barrier layer placement and thickness.

Milacron’s multi-layer packaging technology is backed by over 30 years of experience and has dedicated engineering, service and project management teams to deliver and continually advance the technology. Existing Milacron Kortec Co-injection systems have been successfully used on a number of products such as single-serve coffee pods/capsules, thinwall packaging, PET performs, medical vials and bottles and Milacron Klear Can.

Source: Milacron