Single material only

Foams are becoming increasingly popular in washing and cleaning applications in cosmetics. The fine foam should feel smooth and creamy— and be dispensed in metered doses. The special aerosolor pump lift applicators that create such a foam are made of a diverse material mix, containing PET (Polyethylenterephtalat), steel and more. From an ecological point of view, applicators made from assemblies can rarely be recycled – if it is ven possible. In cooperation with a major customer, a big manufacturer¹ of product solutions who spezializes in complex plastic applications, CosMed developed a completely new and sustainable applicator² that is patented throughout Europe.

For more sustainability

“We thought about an alternative to the common aerosol applicator intensively”, says Jens Maschmeier, commercial managing director of CosMed. The development of the new applicator emerged from technical hypotheses that are discussed frequently when new products are developed, or existing ones optimized. There was a dual aim: developing a pressure-free system to dispense dimensnionally stable foam from liquids and to meet current needs for sustainability. This development has high potential because it combines the large price and the positive ecological aspect. The technical managing director of the CosMed saw the pump system as the key to a practicable realisation of sustainability: “Air, combined with pressure applied to the container, should dispense a stable, fine pearly foam”.

Working with a prototype tool

The foaming of the medium works by a sophisticated combination of screens within the pump head. The product development department needed to design a prototype with production quality to launch practical trials. Various prototype tools were specifically designed and built for the complex components inside the pump head. The injection of the body of the pumping mechanism took place with the help of the prototype tool. Up to four screens can be installed within the body. An empirical study with the coordinated use of several screens with different mesh sizes showed the stability and smoothness of the dispensed final product, a finde foam which is now also called mousse. The desired solution for the consistency of the mousse arose from the combination and use of four screens with different mesh sizes. The production of the smallest one (diameter of a web string: <0.2mm) is the smallest size technically possible, and represents the state of the art in terms of engineering. An injection moulding process with production quality for thinner, more complex screen geometrics is currently not feasible.

Diversity through combination

The combination of different screens reminds of the circular blank. It opens many possibilities or adjusting the consistency of the mousse to the desired final, customer-friendly purpose. As a result, the applicator always foams for the specific application. Developers were flexible in testing many prototypes to customer- specific products and soon-to-belaunched products. For the customer- specific products, the results ar presented afterwards. Along with the complex technique for creating foams, the pump body also answers the market demand for transportand leakage protection.

Less resources

At the same time as the developers focused on the technical innovation, they also took into consideration the materials to be processed, and aimed at manufacturing the whole pump unit with the use of just one material only. Compared to most current pump dispensers, they were able to eliminate the need for the use of steel for the spring mechanism in the first step. “After all, we are plastic experts.” says smiling Jens Maschmeier. Assuming five million units produced annually, the product replacement could save a huge amount of steel. The consequent use of just one single material (Polythylen, PE) has even more saving potentials; additional plastics like Polyoxymethylen (POM) are not needed in the manufacturing process. The result is a potential of approximately 85 tonnes of plastic Even the bottle has designed to require needs significantly less material.

This component could save another 58 tonnes with series productions that use highly efficient injection molding machines, with a power input which is reduced to a minimum. By using energy from the manufacturer’s own photovoltaic systems, more than 20% of the energy needed for production can be self generated. This can just be realized with a well-structured process plan; the manufacturing of lot sizes is optimized, frequent material changes are avoided, and unnecessary heating times eliminated. In addition to the modified foam performance, the product can be individualized in terms of design. The appearance of the pump mechanism as well as the shape of the bottle and the contents can all be customized. This is very important since productdiversification increases the success on the market. The developers met their customer’s design expectations, especially in the high-pricing cosmetic assortment, as a marketing measure and as a part of the product politics of the customer.

100% recyclable

With this applicator, there is the possibility to introduce a truly sustainable and eco-friendly product to the market, creating real advantages for communication with the consumer. There are various marketing relevant advantages for that. The manufacturing of the product is significantly cheaper, uses substantially less material and, because of its singular material combination, it can be recycled to 100 %. 

References

¹. CosMed GmbH & Co. KG, Löhne, Germany
². Squeeze Foaming Device (SFD)