Closurelogic

An e-nose for higher quality beverage closures

CSI Germanyproduces aluminum closures, 28 mm aluminum closures and 30 mm “Long Cap” Wineclosures. Per year, CSI Germany produces about 3 billion aluminum closures,with about 200 employees.

Improved screening of polymer raw materials with HERACLES electronic nose

Bastian Seibert, from CSI laboratory, explains: “The aluminum closures are manufactured here at our plant, from aluminum sheet to a finished closure. Aluminum sheets are printed and lacquered, depending on customer wishes. The closures are formed out of these sheets and as a last step, the sealing liner gets inserted.The sealing liner is delivered to our plant as a raw granulate. It gets moldedby extrusion and inserted to the closure body. The adhesion is given by aspecial adhesion inside lacquer.

As the sealing liner is in direct contact with the product/filling goods of our customers, and the products are also mineral waters in many cases, the liner material needs to be from a high quality (no sensory influence to the products of our customers). Therefore we have a dedicated sensory panel, trained formineral water testing, and as an additional safety/quality step since 2010 the HERACLES E-Nose.

“With HERACLESE-Nose we definitely achieved a higher quality level and thus have theopportunity to distinguish ourselves from competitors.”

With our sensory panel we check the finished closures/liners, and with the HERACLESE-Nose we check the raw granulate before it gets processed, to check for constant quality. We use the E-Nose for checking incoming goods (liner material, sealing discs for Long Cap closures, etc.), and for development and qualification of new materials (liner materials, lacquers (lacquered sheets),etc.)