Mitsui Chemicals in collaboration with Bilcare introduces Chemipearl XSP in India: It’s a new high-performance heat seal coating using water based technology for pharmaceutical blister packaging.

Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. has developed a new Chemipearl XSP series of high performance water-based heat seal coatings for pharmaceutical blister packaging. The process is designed to help converting companies reduce volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions and indirectly help pharmaceutical companies to reduce their carbon footprints by moving toward sustainable packaging.

Chemipearl is a particulate aqueous dispersion made of fine particles of polyolefins, previously considered extremely difficult to disperse in water. When compared with widely used aqueous dispersion techniques, Chemipearl is unique in that it does not use emulsifying agents or organic solvents, according to Mitsui. Characteristics of polyolefins, such as mechanical, water-resistant, and chemical resistant properties, are retained intact, making the product suited in heat sealing for packaging.

Solvent-based heat seal coatings, common in India for example, contain around 70-80 percent of organic solvent and most of the converting companies that produce coated aluminum lid foil release the solvent directly into the open air.

Bilcare Limited, an India technology company that collaborated with Mitsui on the project, will provide “Zeon Aqua” Al foils with the water-based heat seal coating to the global pharmaceutical industry for Press Through Packaging. Bilcare will display “Zeon Aqua” next week at CPhI India, November 28-30, at the Bombay Exhibition Center, Goregaon, Mumbai, India.

Chemipearl XSP-based Al foil has been undergoing stability tests at major pharmaceutical companies in India. It is sold as a “converter ready solution” and can be applied to Al foil and paper by a gravure system, according to Mitsui, which added that the coated Al foil can be directly sealed with both polyvinyl chloride and polyvinylidene chloride, and works with both flat seal and high speed rotary seal blister packaging machines.

With mechanical, water-resistant, and chemical resistant properties, it also can be used for  the packaging of temperature sensitive medicines, the company said.​

(Source: Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.; Business Wire)