Industry-First Process and Adhesive Development Reduces CO2 Emissions in Film Packaging Manufacturing by Approximately 61%

Under the NEDO project 'Research and Development/Promotion of Social Implementation of Energy-Saving Technologies for a Decarbonized Society,' Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. and Toray Industries, Inc. have jointly developed an industry-first process that performs solvent-free lamination and electron beam (EB) irradiation in-line, along with a corresponding adhesive for the lamination process. By fusing Mitsui Chemicals' urethane adhesive technology with Toray's EB-curable flexo/offset printing technology, they successfully improved the adhesive performance of EB-curable adhesives significantly. The development of this in-line lamination and EB irradiation process has achieved a reduction of 3.09 million kWh in annual power consumption and 1,290 tons of CO2 emissions, a reduction of approximately 61% in the lamination process of film packaging manufacturing. Moving forward, the companies aim to achieve both environmental compliance and productivity improvements by reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions across the entire film packaging manufacturing process, from printing to lamination. Film packaging is multi-layered through lamination to enhance product protection, barrier properties, heat resistance, and chemical resistance. In the lamination process, petroleum-based solvents are used in conventional adhesives, consuming large amounts of electricity for heat drying and combustion treatment after coating. In this joint development, the companies adopted a solvent-free EB-curable adhesive and developed a new technology to perform lamination and EB irradiation in-line. As a result, solvent drying is no longer required, and shortening the heating time and lowering the temperature have become possible. Mitsui Chemicals and Toray will proceed with proposals for standardization in film packaging for food and daily necessities, aiming for social implementation by 2027.