Meech solves sticky situation
March 23rd 2006

Meech Static Eliminators has solved a sticky static situation for Technibond Ltd., manufacturers of double sided adhesive tapes & self-adhesive sealants.

Double sided adhesive tape is not the easiest product to process, but Technibond, based in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, has, during the last 20 years, developed extensive experience and expertise in doing just that; laminating, slitting and re-winding rolls up to 1.5m wide and 300m in length.

The action of slitting and rewinding material of this nature can produce considerable static charge. In addition to the Health and Safety aspects of static shocks to staff, the action of the static discharge across the tape can result in the destruction of the interleaving silicone layer, thus causing the scrapping of the material and consequently considerable wastage.

Technibond’s experience was that the extent of the charge depended on the combination of a number of factors including the exact specification of the tape, the speed of the process being carried out and the humidity in the factory.

Of these three variables; only one, the speed of the process, could be directly controlled. Regarding the second, the company offers customers a wide range of adhesive tapes of different specifications, depending on the application for which they will be used, for example laminating different adhesives, films and papers together, and changes the material on the slitter re-winders quite frequently to accommodate customer orders - the third and last factor, the weather, is of course is beyond anyone’s control.

The outcome was therefore that the slitting and re-winding processes had to be run at a less than optimum speed, purely to avoid the build up of static charge. Clearly an alternative solution was required ….. That solution was the installation of Meech Pulsed DC static elimination systems on to the two re-winding machines, a total of four ionising bars on the double re-winding machine and two on the single re-winder.

The Meech systems immediately proved their worth by enabling Technibond to run the re-winding machines at twice the previous speed and also eliminating potential quality problems - with the result that the bars had effectively paid for themselves in a very short length of time.

More articles from Meech International Ltd: