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Airless cosmetics
04.05.09 Neue Verpackung
The requirements of the cosmetic industry are constantly growing. To raise the quality of the products, new ingredients are utilized and more and more antidegradants are left out. A new packaging is required to still cure cream, liquids and gels. With airless-pumps, it is prevented that aerial oxygen gets in contact with the care product. groninger designed a new filling and closing machine for this new system.
Since 1983, Dr. Irena Eris in Poland is manufacturing high-class cosmetic products. First a one-person company, nowadays about 500 employees are busy manufacturing each month millions of vials, pots and little jars of cosmetics and of course disposing them. According to statements of the company, „Dr. Irena Eris“ is one of the most valuable and most popular polish labels. The premium-products are mostly sold in Eastern Europe and in the USA by pharmacies and drugstores. Spa-hotels and a scientific institute are part of the beauty group. The most important values for the company with seat in Piaseczno, south of Warsaw, are qualitatively high-class products. With this demand, the company was searching a partner for filling and closing machines in 2007.
The line should be able, according to the requirements, to fill different sizes of cream jars, airless containers or bottles and to close them by press-on or screw caps or with airless or normal pumps. The products, cream, liquids and gels, are low or high viscous. During the offer phase, hard competition ruled between German special machinists – the polish company made high demands to the engineering. The cosmetic laboratories of Dr. Irena Eris have decided for groningers solutions, since the line is more flexible than the ones of the competitor. Besides this, according to the cosmetic manufacturer, the communication is more unproblematic, and also during the developmental period changes were possible.
„The inquiry was very demanding“, underlines Hubertus Ritzenhofen, groninger product manager. „We have found a good solution by modifying one of our standard machines“. Since the cosmetic industry is very much driven by the marketing, frequent product and size changes are on the daily occurrence. The cosmetic laboratories of Dr. Irena Eris wanted a line which could cover a wide range (15 to 500 ml content). With this specification, only a machine with flexible puck transport system came into consideration: different sizes – the cross-section is nearly arbitrarily eligible – by the very quick change of the support and without extensive adjustment works. At the moment, nearly exclusively airless-pump systems are used. The innovative construction avoids that air is streaming in and can get in contact with the product whilst extraction of the product – the pick-up piston moves together with the product and sets for a nearly rest-free emptying of the container.
The parts of the airless-pump are assembled one after the other on the line. Before the filling station the containers are first blown and sucked out in order to no longer contain perturbing particles. To be flexible whilst filling, two separate container stock each one product. A secure two-component-filling with different products can be carried out or it can be filled two-headed to reach a possibly high output rate. Big volumes are also realized by multi dosing (e. g. double stroke).
Before the container is closed, gassing with nitrogen (N2) minimizes the oxygen content in the vial – the manufactured creams, liquids or gels are longer nonperishable – although manufactured without preservatives. After filling, the pick-up piston, which is following the product due to the vacuum effect, is exactly positioned by a camera system. In the middle of the closure, there is a valve which is closed on the next station for airless closing. Finally, the airless-pump gets a bottom plate on this multifunctional closing machine and on the following station a special label.
„With Dr. Irena Eris we have succeeded the entry to the polish cosmetic industry market“, Bernd Bleher, sales director cosmetics for groninger. Besides internationally acting cosmetic manufacturers in Poland, which are already producing on groninger lines, now the first polish family business is one of the groninger customers.
groninger, established in 1980, has first focused on the pharmaceutical industry. The groninger engineers have copied the experiences they could make in this field to the cosmetic industry: the machines have to be efficient, secure, clean and working fast. Customers require especially hygienic, wearless and CIP/SIP compatible precision pumps for aseptic filling. Not only the pumps but also the complete line shall be cleaned by CIP/SIP systems. The cosmetic branch furthermore requires filling of very different containers - „esthetics“ is, according to the experience of groninger engineers, one of the most used words in the branch. The wide range of different vials, pots and little jars impressively attests this; each target group shall be reached by its own product packaging. Besides this, the manufacturers want to distinguish already by the packaging. The containers have to be able to be filled and closed securely with the set amount of shampoo, gel, lotion, cream, paste, perfume and deodorant – even if the shape is very fancy. The customer compete the competitors as to how flexible the lines are and how they manage with the different tasks.
For groninger the material condition and the design of the primary packaging as well as the viscosity and the therefore exact dosing of the product is a new challenge over and over again. As a further stop, the packaging has to be closed safely by inconvenient lids or caps – the packaging designers are known to be very creative. „The tasks which are given by our customers are always fascinating and often lead to, from our point of view, ingenious solutions“, Bernd Bleher describes the procedure.
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