Dow UNIVAL^™ HDPE

Dow UNIVAL™ HDPE resin is designed for high-speed production of blow molded containers and offers high impact strength, high melt strength, and excellent stress crack resistance. UNIVAL™ 6400-series homopolymer grades offer superior taste and odor, high stiffness, low ESCR and are commonly used for food applications like dairy and water bottles. UNIVAL™ 6200-series copolymer grades offer a good balance of stiffness and ESCR, along with good impact performance. UNIVAL™ copolymer products are commonly used for chemicals, detergents, shampoos, and agricultural chemical bottles. UNIVAL™ 6100-series copolymers are ideal for the production of large blow molded parts where its increased melt strength and toughness are ideal for these types of applications. UNIVAL™ products can be used with all standard blow molding processes such as the continuous wheel, continuous shuttle, accumulator head, intermittent reciprocating and injection and injection stretch blow molding. Dow UNIVAL™ products comply with the requirements of the U.S. FDA 21 CFR 177.1520 (c) 3.2a and some grades have additional certifications.

Because the Dow UNIVAL™ resins are produced using the UNIVAL™ process, they will behave differently on converters equipment compared to resins produced using the Slurry Loop process. In general, head pressures may increase, and temperatures could go up 5 °F to 25 °F, which can cause more swell and increased flash. To compensate for this, converters can lower the extruder temperatures. However, UNIVAL™ resins offer superior taste and odor performance compared to Slurry Loop resins.

TYPICAL APPLICATIONS:

Dow UNIVAL™ is used for various types of blow molded containers for food and beverage, household, industrial, and agricultural chemicals as well as extruded profile shapes.

• Bleach bottles
• Detergent bottles
• Fabric softener bottles
• Shampoo bottles
• Lotion bottles
• Large drums and pails

PROCESSING

DOW UNIVAL High Density Polyethylene blow molding resins are produced using the UNIPOL Gas Phase process. This results in a polyethylene resin with excellent product consistency and low taste-and-odor characteristics. However, these products process differently than resins produced via the Slurry Loop process.

Within the extruder, temperatures can go up 5°F to 15°F, so processors may need to lower extruder barrel temperature settings to compensate.

UNIPOL resins, like DOW UNIVAL, will likely see higher swell which can result in increased flash, decreased parison formation time, and increased head pressure.

The typical melt temperature range for DOW UNIVAL is 170°C to 220°C.

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