Pinnacle Polymers™ Leads the Charge with Milliken’s Advanced Millad® NX™ 8000 Clarifier, Converting Customers and Launching PP Grades
Yesterday at NPE 2012, booth #25023, Milliken & Company announced that Pinnacle Polymers™, a major polypropylene (PP) manufacturer based in Ridgefield, Conn., and a longstanding customer, has fully migrated its customer base to Milliken’s Millad® NX™ 8000 clarifier and is launching new PP grades featuring the advanced Millad technology. Millad NX 8000 enables PP to approach the clarity of glass, and promotes energy savings and cycle time reduction through faster processing at lower temperatures. By facilitating the reduction of energy required to process Pinnacle’s Millad NX 8000 PP grades, this new clarifier allows Pinnacle to offer a more sustainable product to the plastics industry. Following its successful adoption of the next-generation Milliken chemistry in its resins, Pinnacle has received uniformly positive feedback from customers regarding improved aesthetics, performance and productivity.
Building on its existing portfolio of random copolymers that use Millad NX 8000, Pinnacle is introducing two new clarified homopolymer PP grades: 1335C3 and 1403C3. Drink cups made with the 1335C3 material, which is designed for thin-wall injection molding, are featured at Milliken’s booth. In addition, Pinnacle is launching its first commercial product featuring Milliken’s Hyperform® HPN-20E super nucleating technology – the 1335Z2 homopolymer PP grade.
“Early adoption of the advanced Millad NX 8000 technology has been a great move for us,” said Ray Buckwalter, vice president, sales & marketing, Pinnacle Polymers. “Our customers are very happy with the improved clarity, faster cycle times and wider processing window that the Milliken technology provides. Our close relationship with Milliken has resulted in the development of new homopolymer grades featuring Millad NX 8000 and our first grade that incorporates another Milliken additive – Hyperform nucleating agent. Milliken’s advanced technologies are helping Pinnacle satisfy customers and achieve a competitive advantage.”
Enhanced PP Grades Expand Pinnacle’s Portfolio
Pinnacle’s new homopolymer grades offer its customers fresh options for high-clarity PP applications:
1403C3: This is the company’s first thermoforming PP grade featuring Millad NX 8000. The material delivers excellent clarity and a haze value of nine that compares favorably with clarified random copolymers. This material is an excellent choice for thin-wall applications such as overcaps for yogurt containers and individual food portion cups.
1335C3: This injection molding material offers a melt flow index of 35 and provides superior clarity, good melt strength and stretch performance, excellent cleanliness and processing stability. It delivers high stiffness to enable easy stacking and unstacking of cold drink cups.
1335Z2: This injection molding PP homopolymer incorporates Milliken’s Hyperform HPN-20E nucleating agent, which enhances clarity and allows for faster crystallization rates that improve processing and lead to higher throughputs. The material has a melt flow index of 35 and provides high stiffness and flexural modulus for thin-wall food containers.
“Pinnacle is leading the polypropylene industry in the adoption of Milliken’s latest and most powerful clarifying and nucleating technologies to benefit its end customers and its business,” said Wim Van de Velde, global Millad product line manager, Milliken & Company. “We are very pleased that our collaboration with Pinnacle has helped the company develop distinctive new resin grades for makers of clear containers. As shown by actual customer feedback, Millad NX 8000 and Hyperform HPN-20E can make a measurable difference, not just in appearance but also in performance and processing efficiency.”
About Pinnacle
Pinnacle Polymers™ LLC operates one of the most modern Unipol™ polypropylene facilities in North America. Pinnacle’s reputation for innovative products, excellent service and reliability has made them the preferred partner for many processors. To learn more about Pinnacle Polymers, visit www.pinnaclepolymers.com.
About Milliken
Milliken is an innovation company that has been exploring, discovering, and creating ways to enhance people’s lives since 1865. Working from our laboratories, application and development centers around the world, our scientists and engineers create coatings, specialty chemicals, and advanced additive and colorant technologies that transform the way we experience products from automotive plastics to children's art supplies. With expertise across a breadth of disciplines that also includes floor covering and performance materials, the people of Milliken work every day to add true value to people’s lives, improve health and safety, and make this world more sustainable. For more information, visit www.millikenchemical.com or www.milliken.com.