Announced in late February were gold awards for a sterilization pouch sold by Cardinal Health, and for a dialyzer package marketed by Baxter International.
The Autopak Sterilization Pouch is a three-layer structure, two of which are supplied by Alcan Packaging. A 4-mil outer clear top ply is an adhesive lamination of DuPont Canada's nylon with Alcan's polypropylene-based film. This portion of the structure provides transparency, and abuse-resistance for large medical devices and trays containing smaller devices. The middle ply, also from Alcan, is a PP-based multilayer coextrusion perforated for permeability. It contains an autoclavable peelable seal feature, which activates after steam sterilization. The outer bottom ply is a spunbond-meltblown-spunbond nonwoven sheet from BBA Fiberweb. This part of the structure allows permeation of sterilization gases such as steam, while it also provides a barrier to bacterial penetration. In total, the structure measures between 18 and 22 mils thick, "depending on how hard you compress the spunbonded layer," asserts David Rudd, senior specialist engineer at Cardinal Health Care.
Cardinal Health converts materials into a three-side-sealed pouch that it sells to hospitals and the dental market for use in surgical applications around the globe. Cardinal touts the pouch as "an innovative new product that provides visual access to package contents, time and motion economies in preparation and presentation, and the means to reduce the total cost of instrument processing. The end user can quickly confirm whether the instruments are in acceptable condition for use."
The dialyzer package is used in rollstock form by Baxter International, on a horizontal form/fill/seal machine to pack a dialyzer, a medical device used in hospitals or in dialysis clinics for patients with end-stage renal disease.
Rollprint supplies a 3-mil structure that it describes as a special polyethylene blend that offers durability and puncture resistance. The Rollprint machine punches holes into the film to make it breathable, which is necessary as the pouches must withstand ethylene-oxide sterilization.
Before using these tubes, Rollprint supplied Baxter with premade pouches. "The premade pouches were three-side sealed and we manually put product in them before heat-sealing them," recalls Cathy St. John, a packaging engineer in Baxter's Renal Division in McGaw Park, IL. "But we're always working to try to keep costs down so that our pricing to customers can remain the same. The premade pouches were expensive. We've been using [the new rollstock material] since mid last year."
St. John says, "With premade pouches we had to have handlers on the line to open the pouch, insert the product, then put it through a sealer. Now we convey product down a line and it's automatically filled. We only need one individual to place them in a shipping case. The labor savings make it [the cost] come out equal." The unprinted film pack measures approximately 16" L x 6" W.
--By Jim Butschli, Editor
