ExxonMobil has developed a groundbreaking high density polyethylene (HDPE) grade, ExxonMobil™ HD7165L, specifically designed for Machine Direction Oriented (MDO) PE film applications in the food and drink packaging industry. This innovative HDPE grade offers exceptional optical and mechanical properties, making it ideal for creating sustainable mono-material laminates to replace multi-material laminates that are difficult to recycle mechanically.
ExxonMobil™ HD7165L is a perfect solution for producing mono-material laminated packaging for various food and drink products such as nuts, crackers, condiments, granola bars, and potato chips. The development of this new HDPE grade is a response to the increasing demand from brand owners and processors who aim to develop all-PE packaging and require blown MDO-PE films for print webs.
With ExxonMobil™ HD7165L, converters can achieve blown MDO-PE films with 60-70 percent HDPE content, ensuring enhanced stiffness and high heat resistance. This HDPE grade allows for high output rates exceeding 400kg/hr while maintaining bubble stability.
The exceptional properties of ExxonMobil™ HD7165L enable the production of blown MDO-PE films with high MDO stretch ratios up to 7:1 and impressive stiffness (1% secant modulus exceeding 200 kpsi). The film offers excellent optical properties, with haze less than ten percent and gloss higher than 60 percent. It can be used as a print web in a PE-PE laminate, providing high heat resistance, stiffness, and excellent printability, which supports effective brand promotion.
When it comes to blown MDO-PE film applications, ExxonMobil™ HD7165L ensures high, uniform orientation, gauge stability, and low gels, facilitating easy processability. Compared to a market reference HDPE grade with a density of 0.962 g/cm³, ExxonMobil™ HD7165L (density 0.961 g/cm³) exhibits superior shear thinning behavior, extrudability, melt strength for bubble stability, as well as excellent orientability and gauge uniformity.
“Brand owners and the value chain globally have ambitious goals around the development of packaging that can be recycled,” emphasized Justin Schmader, CANUSA Market Development Manager. “Our ongoing innovation to develop new polyethylene grades that can help enable the creation of mono-material packaging structures is one step in helping them potentially achieve those goals.”
*Recyclable in communities with programs and facilities in place that collect and recycle plastic film
**Compared to films with a lower percentage of HDPE incorporated
