CO N V E R T E R O F T H E MON T H

53C2 Europe | COATING & CONVERTING | January / February 07

“It’s Schoeller inside!”Welcome to the first report of a regular series, called ‘Converter of the month‘, whereC2 examines an innovative paper, film or foil converter. Last October C2 visited thefactory of Felix Schoeller in Eastern Germany. Schoeller may not be a household namebut has an enviable market share in the speciality market for imaging papers. We lookbehind the success story.

Fifteen years ago Helmut Kohl ,Chancel lor of a newly reuni -f ied Germany, promised the

East German Länder , or s tates, aprosperous future. Today’s rea l i tyof ten looks qui te di f ferent therewi th unemployment rates wel lbeyond 20%. The mood is gener-a l ly downbeat and many peoplel ive in and look ahead to an uncer-ta in future. Never the less, there arenotewor thy except ions and gen-u ine success stor ies in EasternGermany, one of them being Ger-many’s wel l -known producer ofspecia l i ty papers Fel ix Schoel ler .

In the t iny v i l lage of Weissen-born, in the hear t land of the stateof Saxony, no more than 20km fromthe Czech border , Fe l ix Schoel le rrea l ised what some people con-s ider to be a mirac le . He estab-l ished the most product ive andef f ic ient , fu l ly in tegrated manufac-tur ing s i te for t radi t iona l photo-graphic as wel l as state-of - the-ar timaging papers. The plant is hometo the al ready famous Coater 6 ,which is c la imed to be the mostmodern specia l i ty paper coat ing

l ine in the wor ld. C2 was there towi tness the of f ic ia l opening of thefac i l i ty last December .

Photographic paper historyFounded more than 100 years

ago in the c i ty of Osnabrück, in theregion of lower Saxony, Fel ixSchoel ler specia l ised i ts bus inessin photographic paper product ionf rom the very beginn ing. As a wel l -establ ished fami ly enterpr ise, thecompany developed a l ik ing forspecia l i ty markets very ear ly on. I tfo l lowed and ant ic ipated the ex is t -ing customer t rends f rom ‘o ld’b lack and whi te photography ( theonce famous baryta papers)through papers for colour photo-graphy into what is nowadaysrefer red to as dig i ta l imagingpapers for ink je t pr in t ing. Wi th inthe global manufactur ing market ,represent ing 1.2bnm² of photo-graphic papers annual ly , Fe l ixSchoel ler has t radi t iona l ly occu-p ied the ro le of a st rong marketleader .

As Dr Bernhard Klofat , recent lydes ignated pres ident of the boardof d i rectors , e laborated dur ing hisspeech at the ‘Day of Innovat ion’at the Weissenborn s i te: “Justimagine, two out of three photo-graphs wor ld-wide are pr in ted onpapers produced by Fel ixSchoel ler !” And he added: “Onaverage, every day we manufac-ture and sel l papers for 427 mi l l ionphotographs. That’s a lot of snaps!”

Speciality paper portfolioNever the less, when we refer to

Fel ix Schoel ler , there is so muchmore to wr i te about than just pho-tographic paper . Ear ly in the 90s,

the company star ted developingact iv i t ies in another f ie ld – decora-t ive paper l iners for wood laminat-ing for use in furn i ture or f loor ingappl icat ions.

Concentrated in the Technocel ld iv is ion of the group, todaySchoel ler produces paper for lami-nat ing 7.2Mm² of furn i ture or f loor-ing sur face per day. That is theequiva lent of one in 4m² wor ld-wide being covered wi th Schoel lertechnica l papers.

The digital revolutionBack to photographic paper .

Wi th the advent of d ig i ta l photog-raphy some sel f -appointed t rendgurus proc la imed the inev i tab ledecl ine of pr in t photography. Theywere wrong, but not complete ly so.Pr in t photography is st i l l in ex is-tence but the market has changed.What used to be class ic pr in t pho-tography is nowadays beingincreas ingly subst i tu ted by dig i ta l ,

Dr. Bernhard Klofat

Paper converting line in Weissenborn

CO N V E R T E R O F T H E MON T H

such as ink je t -pr in ted images ordig i ta l imaging.

The conver ted mater ia l is s t i l lsheeted paper , a l though th is t imewi th rather d i f ferent proper t ies .Hence, the wor ld market leader inphotographic paper was presentedwith the obvious chal lenge of beingable to prov ide paper qual i ty ableto meet the new requi rements.These are indeed demanding.

End users employing such papersheets to pr in t out photographsexpect what market exper ts ca l l‘ instant dry ’ , meaning 10-20 sec-onds maximum drying t ime in orderto avoid blur r ing of colours causedby the fo l lowing sheet leav ing thepr in ter and then dropping on topof the prev ious one.

Fel ix Schoel ler met th is requi re-ment in such a way that today,when photographic paper for ink-je t pr in t ing is so ld somewhere inthe wor ld and a wel l -known brand

is wr i t ten on the packaging, “ thepaper ins ide has been producedby us – i t ’s Schoel ler ins ide!” soboasted Bernhard Klofat .

The Weissenborn plantSoon af ter German re-un i f ica-

t ion in 1990, Fel ix Schoel leracqui red the his tor ica l paper pro-duct ion fac i l i ty in Weissenborn,Saxony. The company immediate lystar ted a huge investment , thust ransforming the s i te over the nextone and a hal f decades into whattoday is c la imed to be the mostmodern, fu l ly in tegrated specia l i typaper product ion s i te wor ld-wide.

‘Focus on integrated qual i ty ’ –the company slogan means start ingfrom scratch with genuine paper-making, fo l lowed by double-s idedext rus ion wi th polyethy lene f i lm tothe paper web in order to prov idemechanical st rength and a sui tablebase layer . F ina l ly , a mul t i - layer

coat ing is appl ied onto the PE sur-face in order to create the requi redcondi t ions for the contro l led ab-sorpt ion of pr in t ing ink f rom theink je t pr in ter . Consequent ly , in awel l - ta i lo red conver t ing step, thecoated paper web is cut down fromjumbo size formats us ing s l i t terrewinder operat ions.

Af ter cross cut t ing, the con-ver ted paper sheets are packedaccording to indiv idual customerrequi rements, a procedure st i l lper formed manual ly , and henceth is is the most labour in tens iveoperat ion wi th in the whole job.Core equipment of the ext rus ionoperat ions is the ET 9, a tandemext ruder for laminat ing both papers ides wi th in one go. Maximumspeed is 300m/min wi th a webwidth of 1.75m.

The annual product ion capaci tyof 110Mm² on th is machine wi l l bedrast ica l ly enhanced when the newext ruder ET 10 comes on st reamthis spr ing with an ult imate speedof 600m/min. St r iv ing for the ambi-t ious goal of creat ing a fu l ly in te-grated value chain requi res anabsolute ly huge commitment .

Close to €300M since 1990amounts to an investment thatseems to have paid of f , both interms of per formance as wel l asemployment . In th is per iod thework force at Schoel ler´s Weissen-born plant has increased from just200 people 15 years ago to nowclose on 700. Th is is cer ta in ly a

54 January / February 07 | COATING & CONVERTING | C2 Europe

Weissenborn factory

Felix Schoeller factory,Weissenborn, GermanyEquipment Supplier

Extrusion lines Davis-Standard

Coating lines Polytype

Coating heads TSE

Dryers Spooner

Corona treaters AFS

UV station IST Metz

Drives & automation Siemens

Web inspection Cognex

Web guidance Fife

Cross cutter E.C.H. Will

Slitter rewinders WT WickeltechnikCOATER 6

CO N V E R T E R O F T H E MON T H

remarkable achievement andmeans a lot to the Schoel ler man-agement .

Innovation through partnershipThe most recent investment to

come on st ream is cal led theCOATER 6 . The ‘Great Machine’ ,the hear t of the in tegrated produc-t ion l ine, complements the threeother coaters a l ready insta l led.Delv ing somewhat deeper in to thedeta i ls of d ig i ta l imaging paperproduct ion, one has to env isagethe very step where the ink je tabsorbent layer is appl ied onto thepolyethy lene coated paper .

Th is par t icu lar layer cons is ts ofthree separate s ingle layers . Thef i rs t , s tar t ing f rom the PE sur face,is dedicated to absorb ing the inkcarr ier l iqu id. The second, the so-ca l led developer layer , is used forthe f ixat ion of the var ious inkcolours and, hence, for the properdevelopment of a h igh qual i tyimage. This nano disperse mate-r ia l is a h igh- tech product in i tse l f .F ina l ly , the th i rd ( top) layer pro-v ides the necessary scratch res is t -ance to the sheet sur face. A l l layermater ia ls are appl ied us ing water-based emuls ions.

Pre l iminary tests date back to2001 so, af ter carefu l eva luat ion ofa l l the pros and cons, Schoel ler´s

technica l management team deci -ded to use the cur ta in coat ingprocess as the i r chosen methodfor creat ing th is three- layerar rangement . There are manydeta i ls to be taken into considera-t ion when evaluat ing the diversecoat ing procedure types and theequipment requi red (see the spe-c ia l feature about cur ta in coat ingon page 23 ) .

What might have t ipped thescales is the abi l i ty to apply a l lthree layers dur ing one run and toul t imate ly end up wi th a f in ishedproduct. Schoel ler achieved equip-ment set-up wi th in a comparat ive lyshor t insta l la t ion per iod due toemploy ing a number of adequatepar tner companies on the machinemanufactur ing s ide, headed by

Swiss coat ing suppl ier Poly type.As a resul t , Coater 6 accompl ishedi ts v i rg in run in May 2006. In themeantime it has already set recordsby reaching product ion speeds of360m/min. The ul t imate goal of600m/min is hoped to be reachedby the end of 2007.

COATER 6 in the f i rs t s tep wi l lproduce 100Mm² of specia l i typapers per year , a l though i t hasbeen designed for a maximumcapaci ty of 150Mm².

In the words of Volker Bar th ,p lant manager and Schoel ler´sf ront man in Weissenborn: “A l l th iscould only be achieved by highlymot ivated people through the con-stant enthus iasm of each andevery worker in the i r u tmost dedi -cat ion to the task at hand.”

Precise slitting operations