Is Your Starch Kitchen Draining Your Company Resources?

Many companies in the corrugation industry still use the Stein-Hall method for producing starch. For many years, it served the industry well because it provided a cost-effective way to make adhesives for paper-based products like corrugated cartons. The method requires high sheer mixers and produces a primary and secondary starch to produce a viable adhesive. However, today’s starch kitchen can be more efficient when you eliminate many of the problems caused by the Stein-Hall method. Let’s take a closer look at these problems and see.

Recycled Paper

Many companies today are doing their part for the environment and using recycled paper products. It saves money because you use fewer natural resources in the manufacturing process. However, the old mixing methods often produce glue that fails when applied to recycled paper.

Additives

If your starch kitchen uses a lot of additives, this greatly increases the cost of your adhesive products. Common starch mixing methods need carrier starches as well as costly additives.

Viscosity Issues

With standard mixing methods, you can get the perfect consistency for your adhesives. However, stability can sometimes be an issue. For example, after sitting for a period of time, the adhesive may become too thin or may thicken too quickly, and both of these issues can lead to adhesive failure.

How Flexamix Solves These Problems

When you change to the Flexamix starch kitchen, problems with the old methods go away. Let’s look at the three main issues and how Flexamix solves them:

  • Recycled paper – Flexamix creates adhesives you can use on recycled paper.
  • Additives – you don’t need expensive additives, only water, any kind of unmodified pearl starch, caustic, and boric acid.
  • Viscosity – the “Hybrid-Mix” starch created by Flexamix gives you stable viscosity.

The Flexamix starch kitchen is fully automated and to learn more about its benefits, call us today at (619) 423-9943.