You are searching for an effective and modern latex foam production
process for pillows, mattresses and toppers with the latest state-of-
the-art equipment? Old fashioned systems bothering your mind and
you prefer to use a new manufacturing process to develop new
products for your customers with additional ergonomic features and
benefits ?
I offer you a wide range of consultancy and support in this special
industry.
Let me tell you my story:
Welcome on LATEXFOAM TECHNOLOGY!
1986 I jumped into the bedding industry when Japanese futons
become popular in Germany. I started a small production of these
new “mattresses” and grow continuously during the next years.
Soon a lot of people asked for more comfort in this simple and firm
cotton mats and accordingly I started to add a latex foam sheet in
the middle of the futons. First 2 cm, later 6 cm and at the end I
found myself making a 10 cm latex foam mattress with some fibres
on top.
In 1996 I made my first trip to Asia to investigate more in natural
latex foam because the European bedding industry at that time don’t
care much about the difference between synthetic and natural
sources. That trip was my personal vocation! Back in Germany
together with the ECO Institute in Cologne I founded the “Quality
Association for Environmentally-Agreeable Latex Mattresses .e.V. =
(QuL e.V.).
Beginning 2000 I joined a company in Bremen (Dames-Willers
GmbH) which was already engaged in latex foam businesses such
as import and export of pillows and mattress cores, machinery
supply and other activities.
During the next 13 years, amongst other, I was responsible for the
budgeting, planning, export and erection of 3 latex foam production
plants:
-
2003 Sri Lanka
-
2006 Indonesia
-
2009 Guatemala
After finishing the first project in Sri Lanka in 2003 (which was still
based on steam vulcanization) I invented a „process for
vulcanizing and apparatus therefore” (EP 1 508 420 A3) based
on high-frequency heating and special designed moulds. This
process revolutionized the DUNLOP process dramatically. The
factory in Indonesia was the first in the world which was equipped
with this new production process. A few years later we equipped a
new factory in Guatemala with two separate production lines, one
for pillows and another one for mattress cores.
From 2013 to 2018 I was working as free and independent
consultant, entrepreneur and inventor.
In 2018 I was hired to help to set-up another factory in
Malaysia to produce mattresses and pillows.
We are continuously working in new processes and technologies.
Latest succes is a sample of TALALAY foam without CO2 and
freezing:
Natural latex is the “liquid milk” tapped from the rubber tree Hevea
Brasiliensis. Its main cultivation areas in Asia are responsible for
more then 90% of the world natural rubber production of 12.314
thousand metric tons (2015) of which liquid latex has only a small
share of about 10%. After gathering the liquid latex in the plantations
it is concentrated and preserved with some ammonia and
TMTD/ZnO. This standardized LA-latex (low-ammonia latex) is the
basis for dipping products such as condoms, balloons and gloves
but also for latex foam goods such as mattress cores and pillows.
In 1887, John Boyd DUNLOP (1840 –1921), born in Scotland,
developed the first practical pneumatic or inflatable tire for his
son's tricycle, tested it and patented it on December 7, 1888.
Even two years later his patent becomes officially invalid because
the Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson (1822 - 1873) had
patented the same idea already in GB, France (1846) and in the
US (1847), DUNLOP from now on was the eponym for this
vulcanization process.
1929 E. A. Murphy established the first standardized method for
foaming latex at DUNLOPILLO in Great Britain.
This “DUNLOP process” for vulcanizing latex foam for mattresses
and pillows did not change significantly since these early days.
Some chemicals has been replaced cause of small developments
but the fundamental chemical process, the cross-linking of rubber
molecules with sulphur, is still the same.
In short the latex compound is mixed up (foamed) with air,
transferred into a metal mould (made of steel and/or aluminium)
with hundred of pins and heated (vulcanized) in a steam chamber
or tunnel.
The distances between the pins and their numbers are defined by
the fact of the slow heat transfer which is an indirect one: The
saturated steam in the vulcanizing chamber initially transfers the
heat to the surface of the mould and from there the energy is
moving slowly inside the foam through the pins until the foam
inside is reaching the required vulcanizing temperature of about
100°C.
Looking deeper into the facts for a US Queen Size mattress with
60 in × 80 inch:
The dry volume of such a mattress (pins are not taken into
consideration here) is about 460 litres. At an average density of 130
grams per litre (wet foam) the weight of latex is ab. 60 kg only. The
rest (400 litres) is simply air which unfortunately is working as an
insulator and poorly heatable. For such a mattress core a
vulcanization time up to one hour is not uncommon. The weight of
such a metal mould could sum up to 1.200 kg! Thus more than one
ton of metal is heated up to vulcanize just only 60 kg of wet latex
foam and it is obvious that such a production system needs a very
heavy support structure. Also it is evidently that such a system is
inflexible and slow in regards in general handling like mould
opening, closing and exchange. Now you may want to know what‘s
different in my process?
As against the conventional DUNLOP process, the method I
invented is working on the basis of high frequency heating
technology, by which the water molecules inside the latex foam are
heated by high movement caused by their dipole character. Without
the diversion through metal, the latex foam is reaching vulcanization
temperature within minutes! This means substantial energy and time
saving.
The advantages of this new production
process can be summarized as follows:
•
High Energy Saving
•
Export Product Quality
•
Reduced Space Requirements
•
High Flexibility in Shapes and Sizes
•
New Designs and Product Features
•
Faster Reaction to Market Response
•
Faster ROI
•
Higher Profit
•
In-house Manufacturing of Moulds
This is not the place to enumerate all possibilities
- of which up to now not all have been realized
- but in a personal meeting I would be glad to
discuss further details with you.
Get in touch to discuss more:
WhatsApp: +4915231852629