Recently, China's first biodegradable biaxially oriented polylactic acid film (BOPLA) officially began commercial production. The first to conquer this technology is the world's largest BOPA (biaxially oriented polyamide film, also known as polyamide material) manufacturer FJZL Biomaterials Technology Group.
BOPA is an industry that is little known except professionals, but it is inseparable from all aspects of people's daily life. It can be seen everywhere from the packaging of frozen food, steamed food, vacuumed food to the flexible packaging of products in many industries such as daily chemical, medicine, machinery, and electronics. Recently, the Hay Think team came to FJZL to explore the mystery behind the hidden champion of manufacturing.
Mature technology and stand out
Entering the BOPA production workshop of FJZL, what we see is that all kinds of machines are running at high speed, such as melt extrusion, casting, washing, synchronous stretching, traction and winding…All production links are orderly and automated. The degree is high. It is understood that the current annual production capacity of the company is about 90,000 tons.
China's BOPA industry started late, and the BOPA production line was not introduced until the beginning of the 21st century. FJZL has surpassed Unitika Co., Ltd., a Japanese company known as the originator of the BOPA industry, in just 6 years.
FJZL has mastered the core technology of synchronous stretching many years ago. In 2015, the two world's most advanced magnetic levitation linear synchronous biaxial stretching (LISIM) production lines introduced and modified by the R&D team were successfully put into production, becoming the only company in China that has fully mastered this preparation technology.
BOPLA is a bio-based biodegradable biaxially oriented film obtained by using biodegradable material polylactic acid (PLA) as raw material, through formula and process innovation, and using biaxial stretching technology.
This product is China's first large-scale and mass-produced biodegradable biaxially oriented film. Its raw material comes from bio-based, it has a significant effect in reducing carbon, and carbon emissions are reduced by more than 68% compared with traditional fossil-based plastics.
Guo Baohua, director of the Institute of Polymer Research at Tsinghua University, said that controlling the molecular weight and distribution of PLA, appropriate molecular chain structure, material formulation development, film structure design, and stretching process are the key and difficult points for the successful development of BOPLA.
FJZL's breakthrough in this field shows that China is at the world's leading level in the field of double pull technology. Compared with other processing methods, the biaxial stretching process greatly improves the mechanical properties of the PLA film, while giving the film a thinner thickness, making the process of material disintegration and microbial erosion faster and easier to be degraded. By controlling the crystallization rate of PLA materials and controlling the degradation rate of BOPLA, it can further expand its application fields. It can be used as packaging materials in food, electronic products, books and other fields, which has positive significance for packaging reduction, environmental protection and carbon reduction.
"As a new material, BOPLA has a large space for replacing traditional materials and can effectively meet downstream customers' needs for high-quality biodegradable membrane materials.
In 2015, FJZL launched the EHA film, which has super oxygen barrier performance and odor retention, which can extend the shelf life of food by half a year.
In 2016, FJZL developed a high-impact film product PHA, which can effectively meet the material performance requirements of the outermost structure of lithium batteries. It can be applied to the packaging of lithium batteries for new energy vehicles to help achieve the realization of lithium battery aluminum-plastic film Localization.
BOPA film has excellent high barrier properties, flexibility and puncture resistance, which are its advantages. However, product developers have found through observation that when many consumers use some ordinary BOPA-packaged products, if there is no external tool, it will take a lot of effort to tear them apart. In order to meet the needs of people to easily tear the packaging, the product development team uses a specific process to make a vector film TSA second tear type on the basis of ordinary BOPA film. It has "extremely comfortable" linear tearing performance, which is the key to improving the consumer experience material. Its composite application with packaging materials does not require any auxiliary tools, so that the elderly and children can easily tear open the packaging in a straight line, and can prevent the contents from being spilled.