Manufacturers of still beverages (water, juices, teas, etc.) often rely on PET (polyethylene terephthalate) for the manufacturing of their beverage bottles. Over the past 20 years, plastic bottles have become thinner to be in line with environmental and cost pressures. However, doing so has reduced the weight of the PET polymers in the bottles, resulting in thinner and weaker bottle walls.
Bottles must be stacked after filling in order to getting them transported to customers. With thinner walls, the weak bottles at the bottom of a pallet buckle under the weight of the bottles above, leading to unsafe conditions and costly product losses.
This problem can be avoided by pressurising the bottles. Nitrogen is the perfect medium because it is available in liquid form. When liquid nitrogen evaporates, it expands 682 times its liquid volume. Additionally, it is inert and therefore protects the drink against oxidation, which leads to beverage spoilage and loss in revenues.
We supply the Liquid Nitrogen (LIN) for LIN dosing systems commonly used in bottling facilities. These systems add a drop of liquid nitrogen and trap it by immediately capping the bottle. The trapped droplet expands as it evaporates and increases the internal pressure. The increased pressure ‘rigidifies’ the bottle, making it sturdy enough to stack.