In recent years, manufacturers have increasingly faced inconsistent raw-material quality, supplier changes and the need to adjust formulations quickly. Testing every change on a production line is expensive: it consumes raw materials, equipment time and staff resources, generates waste and carries a risk of scrap. A significant share of these trials can be moved to the laboratory.
Hapro is a leading Chinese manufacturer of laboratory equipment for polymer research and processing. The company produces plastographs, laboratory single- and twin-screw extruders, mills and presses, equipment for film production, compounding and pelletizing, as well as custom installations for specific processing tasks.
Laboratory first, production line second
When replacing a raw material, it is important to check not only the properties of the new component but also its compatibility with the entire formulation. This check is needed both for initial material approval and for subsequent testing of new batches.
Laboratory equipment makes it possible to reproduce processing operations using small amounts of material: to compare raw materials from different suppliers, evaluate new components, adjust formulations and select processing conditions.
In effect, the laboratory becomes a filter before a production-scale trial. Clearly unsuccessful options can be ruled out in advance, and only formulations that have already shown acceptable behavior under laboratory conditions are taken to the main line. As results accumulate, a company can establish a correlation between laboratory data and material behavior on specific production lines. The laboratory can then be used not only for initial raw-material screening but also to predict how a formulation will behave in actual production. This makes it possible to optimize a formulation for both specific equipment and the raw materials actually available: a particular PVC grade, filler, stabilizer or other component.
Instead of using hundreds of kilograms or tonnes of material, a technologist can begin a trial with just a few kilograms.
What a basic laboratory might include
For an initial evaluation of new components in a PVC compound, a basic setup may consist of a plastograph and a laboratory extruder.
The plastograph makes it possible to compare the behavior of standard and experimental formulations during fusion, while the laboratory extruder tests the same compound directly during extrusion. Using the two units together provides a more complete picture of how a new raw material or formulation processes.
For PVC-profile manufacturers, the laboratory can also be equipped with two-roll mills and a muffle furnace. This setup can be used to evaluate the thermal stability of the compound and stabilizers, as well as the risk of color deviations during processing on different types of extruders. For a large PVC processor, an in-house laboratory is now becoming not an optional extra but part of a standard system for quality control and formulation development.
Chinese equipment without compromising on quality
In manufacturing quality, control accuracy and functionality, Hapro equipment is on a par with solutions from leading European manufacturers, while costing substantially less.
In this case, Chinese origin no longer means a choice between price and quality. Hapro produces high-grade professional laboratory equipment designed for regular use in production and research laboratories.
Before shipment, the equipment undergoes extended testing at the manufacturer’s facility. Hapro has worked with Russian companies for more than ten years. During this time, its equipment has been installed in around 20 laboratories at leading Russian enterprises, and some customers have subsequently placed repeat orders.
For complex laboratory equipment, a repeat purchase says more about quality than any advertisement.
Hapro in Russia and Belarus
Revada Plastic is Hapro’s exclusive partner in Russia and Belarus.
Revada Plastic is one of the leading distributors of polymer-processing additives in the CIS, with more than 25 years of experience. The company has also been delivering engineering projects for equipment in the polymer industry for more than 15 years, completing over 100 projects in that time.
On Revada Plastic’s side, Hapro projects are supported by specialists with practical experience using laboratory equipment and an understanding of the processing challenges faced by polymer-compound manufacturers. The work begins with the company’s task: which material needs to be studied, which process reproduced, which parameters monitored and what result is required. The equipment configuration is selected on this basis, while solutions for non-standard tasks are developed jointly with Hapro engineers.
Revada Plastic provides technical project planning, equipment selection, supply, start-up coordination and ongoing support.
Our task is simple: move as many trials as possible from the production line to the laboratory, working with kilograms of raw material instead of hundreds of kilograms or tonnes.
Tell us which processing challenge you need to solve, and we will propose a Hapro equipment configuration for it.
