Dow and Menshen bring sustainable design to spouted pouches

Dow, along with Menshen, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of caps, closures, and single-serve capsules, has announced the new Reverse Spout Sealing Technology, which enables the production of spouted pouches made of mono-material films.

This technology allows converters to address the recycling criteria for flexible packaging and can help brands meet their sustainability packaging goals.

The introduction of the reverse spout technology is the result of a three-year joint development between Dow and Menshen, who are working with a number of partners on technology integration and assist brand owners and converters to put the new sealing approach into practice.

Dr Peter Sandkuehler, Global Application Technology Leader at Dow’s Packaging and Specialty Plastics Business, said: “We basically reversed the idea of where and when the heat needs to be applied during the spout sealing process.”

“By transferring the heat from the pre-melted spout base directly to the sealant layer of the film, we’ve solved two challenges at the same time – how to easily seal spouts to mono-material films, and how to prevent the hard spout ribs from cutting into the film.”

The new process is designed to easily seal spouts in more heat sensitive, mono-material structures made from all PP or all PE packaging layers.

Rather than traditionally applying the heat from outside the pouch forming film to melt the seal layer and the spout, the latter is pre-melted at its base before insertion into the pouch and sealing.

Sarah De La Mere, Business Development Officer at Menshen, said: “The beauty of the process is its simplicity. It is actually more logical to apply the heat from the inside rather than from the outside, whether you use mono-materials or not.”

“We are currently working with several machine manufacturers to ensure that this technology can be integrated into new and existing spouted pouch making lines.”

Jaroslaw Jelinek, Marketing Manager for EMEA at Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, said: “At Dow, we have been working on expanding our portfolio of polyethylene-based mono-material solutions for several years.”

“When looking at spouted pouch applications, we knew that changing this would not be an easy task and would require out-of-the-box thinking.”

“What Dow and Menshen bring to the market today is a transformative technology that contributes to the plastic circularity goals that Dow and the entire industry have committed to.”