“Creating space for innovation” was the motto that led to the company Laufenberg was able to put its new technical center with pilot plant into operation in 2017.
The Fa. Laufenberg has been an owner-managed company in Krefeld since 1947 and manufactures release liners for a wide range of applications, from the production of adhesive tapes for the automotive industry and self-adhesive products in the medical sector to aircraft construction. Laufenberg is known on the market as a renowned company, especially for applications that require special properties such as tight customer specifications and high quality. Since the generational change in 2006, Jörg Soding, who studied paper engineering, has been managing his parents’ company. And with great success. Since then, the machinery has been continuously updated. The production facilities, the buildings and the surrounding area are the subject of expansion, renovation and redesign every year. The objectives are energy efficiency and volume increase, process optimization and error prevention or, like the latest achievement: a customer-oriented innovation center. “A company without a vision has no future,” says Jörg Soding and has put his words into action with the newly built innovation center and technical center.
Innovations include new release liners, but also other intelligent materials that can be produced by manufacturing multilayer systems. “Coatings of all kinds are one of our core competencies,” says Dr. Heike Harwardt, responsible for the planning and management of the new technical center.
The pilot plant, as well as the production lines of the company Laufenberg, meet extremely high standards. On this new system, small productions of max. 550 mm wide samples were produced for customers, new silicones were developed in cooperation with our silicone suppliers and new types of carrier materials were tested with paper and film manufacturers. A 5-roller application unit is available for this purpose. This is unique; no other application process can apply a highly viscous liquid of several 100 or 1,000 mPas in the required layer thickness of 0.5 to 3 µm.
Even thicker layers of over 300 µm can be produced on the new system, e.g. with highly additive liquids. A squeegee application process is available for this purpose. In order to remain open to all possibilities in the future, the company has Laufenberg for the modular Click&Coat® system from the company. Coatema from Dormagen. Individual modules can be replaced at any time, and additional modules are also planned for the future.
Drying or curing is realized by the company. Laufenberg with a four-meter-long dryer section or optionally with UV LED lamps. The four-meter-long dryer section can be heated up to 220 °C and reaches web temperatures of over 200 °C. Explosion protection can be optionally enabled, but has not yet been implemented, meaning that solvent-based formulations cannot currently be used. Thanks to the laminating module, a wide variety of materials can be laminated after coating a substrate.
A machine alone is not an innovation center. A new environment had to be created for the facility. Where Bernhard Laufenberg’s old machine once stood in “Werk1” in 1956, a newly designed technical center with a structured production environment has now been created. A ventilation system with F9 filters ensures clean air, airlocks to the room limit contamination and, if required, further upgrades can be made here so that even clean room conditions can be achieved.
A wide variety of mixtures are prepared in the new preparation room. Any silicones from Laufenberg’s suppliers can be used here or silicone-free coating formulations can also be produced, in all quantities or volumes between 20 ml and 30 l. The various mixers stir or disperse the coating compound. Work can be carried out under scientific laboratory conditions in the newly installed fume cupboard, so that safe working under all new legally required conditions is also guaranteed.
Almost any paper, film or nonwoven can be used as a carrier material on the new pilot system. Corona pre-treatment is possible inline according to the large production machines. The coating is then applied on the system using a doctor blade, 5-roller applicator or flexographic printing process. The rolled up and coated web material can then be delivered as rolls or cut to size using the existing guillotine. A crane lifts the coated rolls weighing up to 500 kg out of the rewinder and, if necessary, transports them across the system to apply a second coating on the same side or on the reverse side.
The new innovation center and the modular, modern pilot plant provide research institutions, customers, suppliers and other interested parties with a unique opportunity to actually develop innovations for coatings of all kinds.
[graue_box]The research and development team at Fa. Laufenberg and its four dedicated employees are on hand to help with any work and are happy to develop new solutions with anyone who is interested – just get in touch.[/graue_box]
