Customers Use Worldwide Nordson Labs to Run Trials and Explore Technologies

Nordson has invested heavily in laboratories on three continents to enable current and prospective customers to investigate new processes, run equipment trials, develop new applications, and train workers—all while keeping their own production lines up and running.
New laboratories in support of Nordson Polymer Processing Systems (PPS) products are now operating in Europe at Münster, Germany; in the USA at Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and Hickory, North Carolina; and in Asia at Shanghai, China and Chonburi, Thailand. A sixth laboratory is in preparation at Austintown, Ohio. These six sites also serve as regional manufacturing hubs for PPS brands, including BKG® pelletizers and melt delivery components; EDI® polymer extrusion dies and Premier™ fluid coating dies; and Xaloy® screws, barrels, and front end components.
Each laboratory is extensively equipped with primary processing machinery, tooling, melt delivery components like gear pumps and screen changers, and ancillary equipment, along with facilities for raw material analysis and characterization. A dedicated staff provides engineering and process know-how acquired through decades of experience in the marketplace. Depending on the laboratory, potential users include extrusion and molding processors, resin companies, compounders, and recyclers.
“Because Nordson supplies numerous equipment systems that play critical roles in melt processing, our technical experts take a systems approach, examining the whole process and the many factors that contribute to a successful lab project,” says John J. Keane, Nordson Corp. executive vice president. “This enables them to make customized recommendations, identifying the equipment that best meets the customer’s cost-performance requirements.”

Four Fully Equipped BKG® Labs In Europe, USA, and Asia

BKG pelletizers are used worldwide in resin production, compounding, and recycling, while BKG gear pumps and screen changers are applied in these processes and in all types of polymer extrusion. Laboratories supporting BKG customers are located in Münster, Hickory, Shanghai, and Chonburi. The Münster lab is part of an extensive new sales and manufacturing facility that serves as the global headquarter for all BKG products. The BKG labs at the three other locations are all new, and like the Münster lab are equipped with twin screw extruders, pelletizers, melt delivery components, and related equipment installed within the past year.
The combined experience of the full-time staff at the Münster laboratory totals 96 years, notes Ralf Simon, managing director of Nordson BKG GmbH. “Our laboratory provides a full-scale production environment,” Mr. Simon says. “We also have an extensive data storage system, making possible detailed final reports, including process and equipment recommendations. “While competitors that do have labs equip them with some basic devices, ours includes a full range of underwater and water ring pelletizers, melt pumps, and screen changers. In addition to all of our manual and continuous screen changers, for example, customers can run trials on an altogether new type of melt filtration system, our HiCon R-Type.” Similarly, all types of pelletizing applications can be trialed at the BKG lab, including high-temperature polymers, low-viscosity materials like hot melts, and specialties such as micropellets impregnated with blowing agent for EPS. In addition, the lab can demonstrate Nordson’s proprietary patented process, called CrystallCut®, which substantially reduces energy consumption in PET pelletizing by using the thermal energy of the molten polymer for subsequent crystallization. Like the laboratory in Münster, the new BKG lab in Hickory includes both underwater and water ring pelletizing systems. BKG laboratories also includes jet cleaners, which reduce the time between trial runs by rapidly cleaning parts such as breaker plates