The sustainable plastic floor boards made of Ceramin by Classen for healthy living are recently being produced on a complete extrusion line with a Multi-Touch roll stack from battenfeld-cincinnati Germany GmbH. Classen, based in Kaisersesch/Germany, is the inventor and manufacturer of these innovative, PVC-free floor coverings with the "Blue Angel" seal of quality. Ceramin is produced from polypropylene as base material. It is pollutant-free, 100 per cent recyclable and produced with recycled materials. The sturdy, durable floor coverings based on Ceramin offer all the advantages of plastic flooring for private residences as well as for public and industrial buildings. The floors are dimensionally stable, abrasion- and water-proof, warm to the touch and resistant to UV light.
Conventional plastic floors based on soft PVC have the disadvantage of poor recyclability and are subject to criticism due to their pollutive ingredients such as chlorine, stabilizers, phthalates and other plasticizers. This is why the Classen Group has developed Ceramin as a material for the carrier boards of PVC-free floor coverings. In detail, Ceramin boards consist to 60% of a natural mineral filler material, to 39% of polymers based on polypropylene, and to 1% of environmentally friendly and health-compatible additives. The carrier boards in plastic floors from Classen are covered with a protective undercoat as well as a primer and decorative layer with a soft-touch surface finish to make human feet feel comfortable.
In the production of the main component, that is, the 2-to-5-mm-thick board, it is of course vital that the board is absolutely even, has a clean, ripple-free surface and complies with extremely narrow strength tolerances. This is important for further processing as well as for its later use as floor covering. In the battenfeld-cincinnati line, the impeccable quality standard of the Ceramin board with high filler content is primarily due to the Multi-Touch roll stack. Due to continuous contact between the board and the rolls, this device ensures perfect conditions for calibration and cooling.
The two lines now installed at Classen are equipped with two twin screw extruders from Leistritz Extrusion GmbH, based in Nuremberg/Germany, which are connected to the dosing unit and ensure perfect homogenizing of up to 8 t of melt per hour. Downstream, these are connected to an automatic flat-sheet die, through which the melt film proceeds into the 2.6 m-wide Multi-Touch roll stack. Here, pre-calibration takes place in a two-roll stack, before the board passes through several more rolls for recalibration. In this way, the surface of the board is continuously in contact with the roll surfaces over a considerable period of time, with the result of perfect dimensional stability and excellent visual attributes. The haul-off is followed by a cutter. The complete line is controlled by BCtouch UX, which is integrated in the customer’s PDA system. In a second processing step, the boards are laminated as described above with the various layers of film and thus provided with a decoration chosen from a large, diversified range of patterns.
