Band Sealers: The Classic Solution

As a traditional, known technology widely installed on industrial packaging lines, band sealers are still the state-of-the-art solution for numerous sealing applications.

They feature continuous motion and a relatively high degree of automation. Their speed is suitable for many though not all automated lines; typical band sealers run up to about 75 feet per minute. By contrast, one high-capacity band-based Supersealer model from OK International (OKI) uses four heaters and other design innovations to allow speeds as high as 120 feet per minute.

Of all available technologies, band sealers can handle the widest variety of container materials, from polypropylene to Tyvek®. They’re the recommended sealing solution for newer laminated bags and stand-up pouches. Where a bag has a thick base layer of foil next to a thin outer laminate skin, the physical contact the band provides is essential. It holds the layers tightly in conformation, so heat can’t cause wrinkling or shrinkage during the sealing process.

This provides specific advantages for certain industries. In poultry packaging, for example, processing can accidentally splash fat on the outside of a bag. Fats are quite effective insulators, forming an undesirable heat barrier. But as long as the amount of fat present is fairly low, the contact pressure in a good band sealer — such as several high-performance Supersealer models from OKI — can penetrate heat through the fat into the bag film to make the seal.

Band sealers are also the recommended solution for manufacturers who are using flow wrappers; performing form, fill, and seal operations; or running a single product for long stretches of time, without changeovers.


OKI sealers feature efficient, compact, low-footprint European profiles. With features such as U-brackets and lift hoods, they’re specifically designed to make access effortless and maintenance easy (as well as infrequent). OKI parts are also easy to find, and competitively priced.

As a final example, biomedical products such as tubing, needles, or operating room trays also present sealing challenges. The medical components industry is strictly regulated. Manufacturers need every bag sealed at the validated, optimized, correct temperature, pressure, and speed. Sealers must enable precise control of these variables, and interact with software that maintains precise verification records.

One OKI Supersealer band sealer model is designed specifically for medical device manufacturing., easy calibration, and pushbutton setting changes. An optional Ethernet connection allows PC recording of all pouches being sealed. Finally, OKI pioneered an innovation that is becoming an industry standard: automatic reverse if parameters depart from settings. OKI machines with this feature never allow a pouch to be sealed outside its parameters.