Foiling the future: Renolit UK’s technical edge

Leon James, product manager for exterior solutions at Renolit UK, discusses how the foiling specialist is committed to ongoing technical development and sustainability.

Renolit UK provides customers with high-quality, sustainable films and other products, as well as related services primarily for the home and building sectors.

Our innovative solutions are expertly designed to refine surfaces, enhance aesthetics and durability. We also offer products that seal and protect materials from environmental factors and wear and tear, ensuring longevity.

We work closely with customers, offering tailored support from product selection to application, ultimately helping to contribute to project success.

We also offer a range of compatible service products to facilitate the application and maintenance of Renolit Exofol films. These include corner pens, cleaning kits and colour specific masking tape.

Factory & investment

To ensure our products can be the best that they can be, we are continually investing in our Cramlington factory so our processes and machinery can continue to produce some of the best films in the market.

In addition to regular maintenance of our high-end machinery, we have made significant investments in recent years in new machinery which has helped to expand our capacity.

In the last seven years, we have installed two brand new emboss machines which brought our total machinery up to four embossing lines, and two calendering lines, as well as two printing machines. Furthermore, we have a dedicated service centre containing five slitters.

Exterior product portfolio

This investment into our factory and machinery allow us to produce our exterior Exofol range which includes Renolit Exofol MX, Renolit Exofol PX, Renolit Exofol FX and Renolit Exofol PFX.

Our Renolit Exofol MX foils have been a staple for over 30 years and not only promise longevity and quality but also come with a guarantee of up to 10 years, depending on the geographic or climatic region.

This also contains our Solar Shield Technology (SST) which reduces heat build-up, thereby slowing down the aging process of the film. SST also offers protection against weathering through the pigments in the coloured based film reflecting the sun’s infrared radiation to reduce heat build-up.

The Renolit Exofol MX products comprise of two layers, a pigmented PVC base film containing SST to which the printing inks are applied to create our portfolio of realistic woodgrain designs, with a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) top layer to secure the design, providing weatherability and protection for the film.

The Renolit Exofol PX range of foils are significantly more resistant to weathering and have a longer service life of up to 15 years, especially in warmer climates such as southern Europe.

The foil is made up of a base primer, an unplasticized pigmented PVC base film with SST that helps to significantly reduce plasticiser migration – the printing ink is the put on top of this and is topped with a PMMA film.

The Renolit Exofol PFX range of foils are practically indistinguishable from real wood which is achieved through combining the wood grain texture VLF with a PVDF layer. This helps to provide a foil that not only has anti-graffiti properties but is also easy to clean as dust and dirt particles are prevented from sticking to the foil due to the PVDF surface. The foil is made up of the primer, followed by the unplasticized, pigmented PVC base film with SST, the printing ink, a PMMA film and a PVDF layer on top.

Finally, the Renolit Exofol FX range of products are suitable for exterior applications in the most challenging climates and give building components an unprecedented longevity of up to 20 years. This range of foils are weather, chemical and UV resistant and the composition keeps the gloss level virtually unchanged over the entire service life. The foil is made up of a primer, pigmented PMMA base film with SST, printing ink, PMMA film and a PVDF layer to seal it all in.

Sustainability

Renolit is conscious of the environmental impact of plastics and is committed to continually improving the environmental management systems and to reduce the impact on the environment and prevent pollution.

Our employees all have a responsibility to ensure the success of environmental and sustainability policies. Further to this, we have also implemented a range of measures to ensure this impact can be minimised.

The first measure was to sign up to Operation Clean Sweep, an industry best practice for reducing plastic pellet loss to the environment. This is consistently monitored to ensure accurate reporting to find out if any pellets have been dispersed out into the local environment.

Renolit has also signed up to the Go Circular program from the Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA). This focuses on the entire product lifecycle of the products that are produced to close the material and energy cycle as far as possible. Where product reuse and recovery are not possible, the waste will be disposed of responsibly and in accordance with our zero landfill principles.

Other measures implemented include the recent installation of solar panels on the factory roof and in the company car park. This will reduce our carbon footprint by 330 tonnes per year and provide over 10% of our site’s power requirements by generating electricity on site.

Made in Britain

To further help Renolit and our customers lower their carbon footprints, we make a vast array of our products at our Northumberland factory. This means we don’t have to produce it elsewhere within the group and ship it vast distances into the UK.

This has the added advantage of our products having a shorter lead time for our UK customers. Our British factory and offices currently employ around 345 people and has proven to be a significant boost to the region through various community initiatives such as coastal litter picks, Christmas toy donations to local charities and engaging with local schools and colleges to offer work experience opportunities.

This resilient product supply means that no matter where they are in the world, our customers can rely on Renolit to offer exceptional support to customers.

Through our marketing support programme, Renolit is able to assist all customers. This typically involves arranging swatches tailored to individual customer specifications. Not only this, Renolit also help our customers through their unrivalled technical support.

We can assist with lamination trials, process optimisation, and troubleshooting production issues to keep operations running smoothly. These support activities are tailored to customer needs and include both remote assistance and on-site visits.

Renolit also offers a repair film service which matches the original quality of our complete range of films. This service can repair damage caused in various ways, making it appear as if the damage had never happened.

We also provide a repair film training programme to equip people with the expertise to repair all types of film damage, and to familiarise them with Renolit repair films and the appropriate repair procedures. Once the course is complete, participants can order our repair film and carry out repairs themselves.

These additional services enable us to react quickly to our customers’ requirements. They also demonstrate our dedication to meeting our customers’ needs and show that we are willing to go the extra mile to support them.

Renolit is committed to providing our customers around the world with expertly designed, high-quality sustainable films and associated products. It also underscores the integrity of our manufacturing and delivery processes, which our customers can depend on. When you choose Renolit you can “Rely on it”.