Strong quality thanks to the new cold glue
Intercol has been working successfully for many years to improve the customer's gluing process. Intercol's vision for the future is "zero defects". In the past year, Intercol, together with several customers, has again made great strides towards this vision. The combination of Intercol's know-how in the gluing process and its Superjet 900 cold glue has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of gluing problems with its customers.

Cardboard box end users are also urging cardboard box manufacturers to improve the gluing process. Often millions of boxes go through each month, but if there are 10 individual, incorrectly produced boxes in between, that's too many. Every stop in a high-speed production line costs time and a lot of money, ”explains a production manager in the corrugated cardboard industry. Machine stops and quality problems are often a reason to scrutinize the gluing process. Other glue suppliers are also taking steps, but things had to get better. In the end they succeeded together with Intercol. The number of errors has decreased from a few dozen to one or two per quarter. And these errors are usually not due to the adhesive ”.
automation
In many complaints, the fact that the packaging processes are increasingly automated also plays a role: “The extensive automation at the customer requires high-quality cardboard boxes. The box operators are listening more and more. An incorrectly glued box can bring a production line to a standstill. That is why it is very important that each box is produced perfectly. Glue on the inside or outside of the box causes what is known as inside or outside sticking. With the first problem, the box does not pop open and with the other, the boxes stick together. As a result, production stops and the customer makes a complaint. The need to improve the gluing processes has increased due to increasing automation.

Hold on to the industry
A corrugated board manufacturer doesn't just switch to a different adhesive supplier "," You are taking a risk, and changes often attract resistance. People are conservative ”.
At one of our customers, a pilot was tested on one of the five inliners with the Superjet 900 adhesive from Intercol. Two parameters were important: the gluing behavior and the number of microstops of the box folding machine.
The sticking behavior, the adhesion, was not a problem with any of the adhesives ”,“ but we saw big differences in the number of microstops ”. With the Intercol adhesive, there are 28% fewer microstops. An important advantage, because every machine stop is a potential complaint. Fewer stops make our process much more stable. In fact, you create a quarter fewer complaints ”.
This quickly dispelled employees' doubts about the new adhesive. The operators, the technical service and the quality department were all annoyed ”.

viscosity
“Making a good box starts with the basics. So with good cardboard and good glue, 'says a technical sales manager at Intercol. This glue needs to be applied in a constant amount and that requires a controlled process. If the viscosity of the adhesive is too high, the dosage will be inaccurate. If the viscosity is too low, the glue will drip off the boxes and the box will not adhere well ”.

The viscosity of adhesives can be influenced, among other things, by the outside temperature. When glue pipes run under the roof, where it can be very cold in winter and in summer the temperature can rise to 40 degrees Celsius, while the glue was developed for processing at around 20 degrees Celsius. Operators often adjust the process by adjusting the adhesive pressure or needle stroke to suit the conditions.
Adjusting the settings manually makes the process unstable ”,“ We have therefore introduced a different adhesive with its viscosity, which was developed for processing on non-contact adhesive systems and recommends a linear adhesive pressure curve that is linked to the machine speed. This ensures that the glue pressure always matches the speed. When started, the machine runs at around 20 meters per minute and little pressure is required. When the machine is running at full speed, around 400 meters per minute, the adhesive pressure must increase significantly. Such a sticking curve creates peace for the operator and reduces the risk of errors ”.
After all, a higher average viscosity leads to fewer splashes and the nozzles are reduced from size 6 to size 4.
Food safe and optical brighteners
Another advantage of the new Superjet 900 adhesive is that it can be detected on white and recycled cardboard so that detection systems can see the adhesive. Optical brighteners in cardboard can cause problems with standard detection media, ”explains Intercol.