Smart Molding International 2-2021

IML & IMD 23 www.smart-molding.com the materials cycle must be digitised and interlinked. This is exactly where the HolyGrail2.0 initiative for digital watermarks on packagings comes in. The digital watermarks are codes the size of postage stamps which are ap - plied directly to the surface of a prod - uct or to its label but are not visible to end users and consumers. The indi - vidual tile patterns are created through micro-topological variations in the car - rier material and multiplied to create a graph which resembles a mosaic. They create a “digital passport” of which a fragment is enough to call up informa - tion about the manufacturer, for exam - ple, or about the materials processed and whether or not the packaging is suitable for food. High-resolution cam - eras built into sorting equipment read out the information from the digital passport. At super - m a r k e t checkouts or for end us - ers and consumers, this infor - mation is read out by scan - ners or using an app on a mobile device. This technology provides a means of querying all kinds of additional information (includ - ing about availability, use or disposal, for example) throughout the entire service life of a product. Application example: IML containers made from mono-material Arburg has been working intensively for some time now to gain experience of the technology based on digital water - marks. In the pilot phaseof HolyGrail, the packaging version of a hybrid Allrounder 820 H was able to produce pairs of IML containers made from bio-based PP in a cycle time of 5.8 seconds. An IML auto - mation system inserted the associated PP labels from partner company Ver - straete and removed the finished parts at the same time. The labels contained the digital watermarks. Information about the contents of themono-material packaging aswell as the use and disposal of the product could be queried via the corresponding app. As Allrounder injection moulding machines are generally suitable for processing recyclates from household waste (PCR) or industry (PIR), Arburg has already presented and demon - strated a number of examples of pos - sible ways of returning plastics to the circular economy once they have been separated securely into homogenous types. The challenge now is to find ways of upscaling this technology. Arburg www.arburg.com How the circular economy works: Thanks to digital watermarks mono-material products made from PP, for example, can be separated homogenously and returned to the circular economy as recyclates Digital watermarks: A “digital passport” which is invisible to end users and consumers (left) is generated by writing information directly to the plastic or associated IML label (shown on the right) (All photos: Arburg) The German family-owned com- pany Arburg is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of plastic processing machines. The product portfolio encompasses Allrounder injection moulding machines with clamping forces of between 125 and 6,500 kN, the Freeformer for industrial additive manufacturing, plus robotic systems, customer and industry-specific turnkey solutions, and further peripheral equipment. Arburg has its own organisations at 35 locations in 26 different coun - tries and, together with its trading partners, is present in more than 100 countries. This creates an inter- national sales and service network that allows the company to provide first-class customer support on the ground. Production takes place ex - clusively at the parent company in Lossburg, Germany.