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How jumbo bags are manufactured?

Jumbo bags or FIBCs is an important tool for carrying purposes in industrial environment nowadays. With a huge capacity up to over 1MT, it is used widely to contain raw material in manufacturing as well as final products in bulk, which helps manufacturers lessen a considerable amount of packaging cost. In general, jumbo bags are made from polypropylene resin, masterbatch and other additives in one fabric extrusion line, but it differs from other stages of manufacturing process based on each types of jumbo bags for each carrying purpose. Therefore, in this article, we will learn in details different categories of jumbo bags as well as its producing line.

1.      What is jumbo bags

A flexible intermediate bulk container (FIBC), jumbo, bulk bag, super sack, big bag, or tonne bag is an industrial container made of flexible fabric that is designed for storing and transporting dry, flowable products, such as sand, fertilizer, and granules of plastic.

Jumbo bags are most often made of thick woven strands of oriented polypropylene, either coated or uncoated, and normally measure around 45–48 inches (114–122 cm) in diameter and varies in height from 100 to 200 cm (39 to 79 inches). Its capacity is normally around 1,000 kg or 2,200 lb, but the larger units can store even more. A FIBC designed to transport one metric ton (0.98 long tons; 1.1 short tons) of material will itself only weigh 5–7 lb (2.3–3.2 kg).

Transporting and loading is done on either pallets or by lifting it from the loops. Bags are made with either one, two or four lifting loops. The single loop bag is suitable for one man operation as there is no need for a second man to put the loops on the loader hook. Emptying is made easy by a special opening in the bottom such as a discharge spout, of which there are several options, or by simply cutting it open.

2.      Types of jumbo bags and its application

  • Standard Jumbo Bags:

This is the most common jumbo bags type which has a load capacity of 500- 2000 kgs. Standard jumbo bags with dimensions is an ideal bag for carrying non-flammable dry goods such as agro-products, chemicals, and construction materials like sand, stone, gravel, etc. and can be customized based on detailed requirements. According to the structure, standard jumbo bags can be further classified into 1 & 2 Loop FIBC Bags and 4 Loop FIBC Bags.

  • Conductive Jumbo Bags:

Also known as Type C FIBC bags, these are manufactured using non-conductive polypropylene fabrics that are interwoven with conductive threads to be connected to a grounding point during filling or discharging. Not only are these bags used for storing and transporting flammable goods, but also the safest option for environments with explosive gases, dust, or solvents.

  • Baffle Jumbo Bags/Q-Bags:

This type of jumbo bags is designed with polypropylene baffles sewn across the four corners to increase their filling capacity to nearly 30% compared to standard FIBCs. Q-Bags will bring benefits to users such as better stackability, shape retention, space optimization, and protection from spillage.

  • UN Certified Jumbo Bags:

While standard FIBCs meet a safety ratio of 5:1, UN certified Jumbo bags offer an outstanding safety ratio of 6:1. Therefore, these bags are designed for heavy-duty purposes. The rigid build and durability of these bags make them ideal for storing and carrying volatile or hazardous substances.

  • Ventilated Jumbo Bags:

With advantages like strong, breathable, and protective against moisture and mould, these bags have been specially designed to store and transport grains, seeds, and perishable food items like onions, potatoes, etc.

3.      Manufacturing process of jumbo bags

  • Extrusion

The process of manufacturing jumbo bags involves mixing raw materials starting with PP pellets, masterbatch and other additives. Materials will be melted and extruded as a flat film. It is then slit into tape yarn by the slitting unit and stretched and annealed. Next, a take-up winder winds the heat oriented tape yarn onto a bobbin.

The raw material including PP resin and masterbatch in the granules form is fed to a raffia tape manufacturing plant to obtain the raffia tapes of PP. The raw material mix is prepared in a tray adjacent to the feed hopper. The prepared mix is sucked in to the hopper by vacuum. The raw material mix is fetched to the extruder of the plant; where the same is melt by applying controlled external heat on the barrel. The molten mass is forced out through a die head into a cooling tank, in the form of sheet. The cooled & solidified sheet is passed through the knifes to obtain raffia tapes of higher Denier. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) or Polypropylene (PP) granules are first converted in to 2.5 mm wide tapes by extrusion process. The raffia tapes received from the plant are stretched and annealed. These are then wound on cheese pipes with the help of the sets of winders.

  • Weaving

Weaving the yarn into a fabric is similar to the weaving of textiles . These flat tapes are then woven into circular fabric by circular weaving machine. Thus woven circular fabric is then cut in to required dimension. Thread from the bobbin in the circular loom’s creel stand is woven into tubular cloth the weaving of raffia tapes into cloths is carried out in circular looms, which produce circular cloth of desired width. The process of weaving is automatic and continuous in nature. Numbers of circular looms are installed so as to match the effective output of the raffia tape manufacturing plant. The cloth produced by each loom is continuously wound on rotating pipes.

  • Cutting

The PP woven fabric in the form of rolls fed into an automatic cutting machine where it is cut into different panels of a specific size. The automatic process assures the uniformity in size of the cut panels. These panels are now ready for stitching or printing.

  • Printing

Once the fabric cut panels arrive after cutting, they are put into the printing machine, and the logo/artwork impression is made over the fabric. It is this stage at which the brand name or logo of the customer is printed on the bag. The artwork/logo up to four colours can easily be reproduced.

  • Webbing

The loops of the bags used to lift the kits are made at this stage. The more massive tapes of polypropylene are weaved together on needle looms to give them the shape of webbings. This webbing is cut into a specific size and stitched to the bag to form the lifting loops of the bags. The colour of the strap is white as standard, but can also be made in any desired colour like Red, Blue, Green, Yellow etc. depending upon customer requirements.

  • Sewing

All the components like fabric cut panels, webbings, spouts, duffle are brought together and stitched by qualified tailors to give shape to each bulk bag. The bags are thoroughly inspected by qualified supervisors to ensure that it is free from any defects.

4.      Masterbatch in jumbo bags production

Masterbatch is an important raw material in jumbo bags manufacturing process. Manufacturers use CaCO3 filler masterbatch mainly for reduction of material cost, color masterbatch for color making and additives masterbatch for other properties improvement. Masterbatch appears to bring the best solution to jumbo bags manufacturers regarding saving production cost and enhancement products properties as well.

As a leading manufacturer of CaCO3 filler masterbatch, color masterbatch and additives masterbatch in Vietnam with over 13 years of experience, US Masterbatch is proud to supply high-quality masterbatch with competitive rates to numerous manufacturers in 80 countries around the world, in which jumbo bags companies play a big scale in exported quantity.

HDPE based masterbatch from US Masterbatch bring outstanding features as below:

  • Reduce production costs
  • Increase hardness and durability as well as not losing color and transparency of the product.
  • Glossy, soft, flexible surface with good water resistance.
  • Food contact and children contact recognized by FDA, REACH, ROHS, etc.
  • Withstand high temperatures in a short time.
  • Raw materials are available from nature, safe, low cost, and easy to use for the production of the plastic industry.

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