Melt Flow Index- An Important Aspect of a Plastics Sustainability Initiative

Bill Desrosiers- Vice President, Business Development

03.25.2021

Melt Flow Index- An Important Aspect of a Plastics Sustainability Initiative: Increasing the amount of recycled material that can be used without impacting material quality

A Melt flow Indexer, is a laboratory instrument that provides a plastics processor or recycler valuable information that either confirms a polymer’s specification on a polymer data sheet or in the case of recycled material, informs operators of the current Melt Flow Index (MFI) or Intrinsic Viscosity IV of the recycled plastic. 

So, the questions most often asked is “How can I use the information provided by this instrument in the daily operation of my plant?” 
 

Step 1: Review the Target Specification of the Polymer

When looking to insert recycled material into your process, it is important to start at the beginning… Verify what the polymer should be on the Specification Sheet

Step 2:  Take a sample (or samples) of the material granulated out of the gaylord

To ensure the quality of each gaylord of material, you can take a sample (or few samples) of each gaylord and quickly test them and get the MFI of the sample(s) actual melt flow index in g/10min

Step 3:  Mark or record the actual Melt Flow Index 

Once you obtain the average MFI or IV of the lot of recycled material you can record in your material database by gaylord or even write the MFI on the gaylord for easy identification.

 

 

 

Step 4: Adjust your blender or feeding system

Now that you know the MFI of the recycled material, you can adjust your process to ensure quality.  This could be by adjusting the virgin/regrind ration or adding an additive to the process that will help bring the regrind back into specification

 

 

For those using extruders, you can easily take the next step adding a Dynisco Online ViscoIndicator to your standard extruder that enables full lot to lot measurement of your production run while giving you the ability to send an automatic signal to your blender or feeder for real time adjustment to your production line.

 

 

This data can be correlated to your melt flow indexer for conformation that the polymer used in your process meets the standards you have set.  

 

Don’t forget… all these test samples can be uploaded to the Dynisco IoT Cloud Connect where your polymer data can be stored and compared by device, production run, operators, and global locations.  By phone, tablet, or PC.