In 1998, Beardow Adams made a breakthrough in the advancement of adhesives for packaging.

Based on entirely new raw material technology, our R&D chemists developed a range of hot melt adhesives with clear advantages over the standard products available in the market.

It was immediately obvious from the pearl white colour that these new adhesives would be something special.

Testing revealed hot melts that have exceptional levels of stability – during seven days’ continual exposure at a constant 160°C, there was less than 1% variation in viscosity and colour.

In comparison, and under the same test conditions, the viscosity of a well known competitor’s product increased by nearly 25% and its pale yellow colour severely darkened to a dirty brown.

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No nozzle blockages, odour or fuming

The significance of this is that BAMFutura products will not char, skin or gel. This eliminates nozzle blockages, one of the major causes of production downtime in the packaging industry, usually caused by poor quality hot melt degrading in the melting tank.

One of the things that has impressed customers is the way that the adhesive remains crystal clear in the melt tank. Even after prolonged exposure to heat, the bottom of the tank is still clearly visible, in contrast to what they were used to.

In addition, the adhesives are virtually odour free and do not fume, with the result that the distinctive smell associated with hot melt adhesives should be a thing of the past. The purity of the raw materials used in the BAMFutura range also ensures that they will not taint even the most absorbent of food products.

As a further benefit, BAMFutura products are fully compatible with current standard hot melts, allowing trials to be conducted easily without needing to flush out old adhesive.

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Shared Characteristics

As one of the largest hot melt manufacturers in Europe, we have built special relationships with our major raw material suppliers, putting us in a position to test, approve and be first into the market using new raw material technology.

After extensive trials, the BAMFutura range of hot melts was launched, all with common characteristics:

For high quality packaging operations, we have long believed that the industry is looking for adhesives that are easy to handle, odourless, do not fume and are versatile.

Anyone packaging goods that are sensitive to tainting will know that an adhesive’s smell can carry over into their products – cigarettes, butter, cereals and many dry foods being particularly vulnerable.

With its ultra low fume/odour characteristic, BAMFutura has addressed this issue. It has also eradicated the general smell and fuming of adhesives into the atmosphere, to the delight of line operators.

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Versatility

Although there are several products in the BAMFutura range, and considerable field experience behind them, there is one particular adhesive, BAMFutura 1, that has proved to be highly versatile and is replacing a wide variety of other hot melts.

It can run on virtually any type of packaging machine, at high or low speeds, whether in hot summer or cold winter conditions and is already successfully running on Riverwood and Mead multi-packers, Europack and Assi Domän case packers, Rowema, Jacob White and Bradman Lake carton sealers and Kisters tray formers, to name but a few.

Using BAMFutura 1 means that users can make significant productivity gains by specifying just one hot melt and thereby save the time, cost and inconvenience of having different adhesives for differing production requirements.

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Proof

Backing this assertion is a study that compared the performance of BAMFutura 1 with several internationally known competitors’ products. Using a PIRA Adhesive Performance Tester, the performance of the different hot melts was compared in the key areas of fibre tear and the effort required to pull a bond apart on various substrates at predetermined open and contact times, ranging from half a second to six seconds.

BAMFutura 1 consistently gave a total fibre tearing bond which needed a considerable effort – over 14 kg point load – to rupture. By contrast, and using exactly the same procedures, the competitors’ products showed major inconsistencies – giving little fibre tear and needing far less effort to break the bonds.

The results show that BAMFutura 1 is more versatile in performance, allowing up to six seconds’ machine open time and then giving good fibre tearing bonds immediately after contact.

Even with very short machine open and compression times (typically half a second or less), it still gives 100% fibre tearing bonds and needs almost maximum effort to pull apart.

Independent tests conducted in January 2000 by PIRA, which compared the heat resistance of BAMFutura to a range of competitors’ standard and low application temperature products, showed BAMFutura 1 having the highest average heat resistance performance of those tested.

Demonstrating an adhesive’s performance is never easy without being able to set up a specific trial on a customer’s equipment, and on busy packaging lines, this is not always immediately possible. PIRA’s Adhesive Performance Tester provides a level playing field and a consistent method of testing adhesives on many types of board.

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