Bags of Innovation from Linertech

Whilst InterBulk Group is probably best known as an international intermodal liquid and dry bulk Logistics Company, the group also boasts one of the World's most innovative container liner companies in Linertech of the UK.

As the demand for one trip containers using liners grew and the practice became common place, there were always improvements and innovations to develop in response to customers concerns.  Linertech decided to take the strategic decision to develop and improve our products and services in line with the rising quality expectations of our customers and markets. Serving our customers gave us ideas about how best to learn and improve.

A development that the Linertech management are particularly proud of is - they were the first provider of liners to come up with the concept of a patented "safety liner".

We were conscious of customers and legislation pressing for an easily achieved safe sampling point and increased inspection of materials before final discharge from ground level. In order to check the material, the driver needs to gain access to the inside of the liner. Traditionally this had always been done through the loading sleeves of the liner via the top hatches of the container. In response Linertech developed a system that allows for the liner contents to be sampled and resealed at ground level. In addition, the liner also has a 'self-venting' facility which avoids the traditional means of venting the liner during discharge, which is opening a loading sleeve at the top of the container. The Linertech safety liner also comes with increased levels of strengthening and reinforcement, further preventing the opportunity for mishaps, spillages or accidents".

The 'Safety Liner' has been widely mimicked across the dry bulk liner industry. Since the LinerTech safety liner, there has been fresh innovation from the Linertech technical team working in partnership with parent company InterBulk Group.

Linertech have created a 'Fluidised Liner'. This liner is used for a number of difficult to discharge materials using the 'bag-in-box' concept. Some materials can be difficult to discharge because of their material characteristics. Products can awkwardly agglomerate (clump together) and block. This normally calls for some manual intervention usually involving air vibrators or men with hammers.

The fluidised liner negates the necessity for such actions. Fluidising air passes through a perforated surface into the product material above and reduces the friction between the particles of the material and the floor surface of the liner, leading to the material contents sliding out the discharge sleeve".

The fluidised liner has been shown to be ideal for 'sticky' cohesive materials such as, starch, flour and certain speciality chemicals. The liner is made from food grade film, which meets all current UK, EU and FDA food legislation and is manufactured to ISO 22000, making it ideal for all food powders not suited to traditional liners

Development of LinerTech's solutions is a time consuming process, involving prototyping, thorough testing and a lot of patience. Much of the development work takes place because a customer has a handling problem with a specific material or is new to the concept of the "bag-in-the-box". This is what differentiates LinerTech from its competitors, as it provides a "solution" rather than a product.

The fluidising liner cuts cost and effort associated with manual handling, it cuts out the need for extra equipment such as screw feeders, allowing more space for product on every load and it's as user friendly to install or remove as standard liners. The fluidising liner as a great way to increase the scope of products moved intermodally by 'bag-in-box'".