Casting, Cutting and Packing
Once the slurry has been sufficiently blended and vacuumed. We transfer (little by little) the slurry, from the homogenizer to the Film Making Machine. This machine looks similar to a pizza oven. However, instead of a tray full of pizza’s, there is a roll of PET 35cm wide that feeds the wet slurry through the oven. At the beginning of the oven two large rollers are positions roughly 0.5mm away from each other. When we add the slurry to the feeding station, the rollers are engaged to feed the slurry though, onto the PET and through the oven. The oven temperature is typically set to somewhere between 60-80 degrees Celsius.
The speed is then set and the slurry if feed though to allow it to dehydrate to the desired consistency. We are looking for a film that is sufficiently dry, but not too dry that the film breaks and cracks before packaging. 10% humidity on the strip is an ideal achievement. As it comes out of the oven we check for consistency, thickness, humidity, and adjust temperature and speed of rolling as needed. Once the last of the slurry has had its chance to go through the oven, then next step is cutting and packaging. Our packaging machine will separate the film from the PET, cut the film down to 2.5cm width strips and chop the film to the desired length.
Our strips typically are cut to 3cm-5cm lengths. The length is typically determined based on the amount of active ingredient we want in the finished strip. Immediately after cutting the cut strip is placed in its pouch and sealed for freshness. The process from start to finished, packaged film takes place all with a 24 hour period of time. Once packed in their individual pouch we can then pack pouches into retail ready packaging and ship off to the customer.