Geomembrane liner manufacturers

Atarfil is the leading manufacturer of polyethylene geomembranes with a presence on five continents.

Our products designed for the safe containment of waste are a permanent barrier of maximum tightness, for the protection of the environment and durable in the long term.

Polluting waste that is not properly managed causes a serious impact on the environment and condemns future generations to live in a polluted environment that is hostile to human life.

We have the responsibility to contribute with everything we have at our disposal to prevent the pollution of the planet. And we can avoid it if we carry out a proper waste containment procedure.

At Atarfil we are specialists in Safe Containment, which is our sector of activity.  We manufacture Geomembranes capable of minimizing the impact of waste and potentially toxic residues for decades.

Our Polyethylene Geomembranes are manufactured to the highest standards, ensuring their long-term durability even in the case of highly aggressive waste containment. Carrying out an exhaustive quality control of each of our manufactured products.

To this end, we select the best available raw materials, we are constantly innovating in terms of materials and production processes and we have developed our own manufacturing technology (by calendaring) which allows us to offer the most technically efficient product available on the market.

Atarfil currently has manufacturing plants in Europe, Spain. We can market our products in any country in the world: Australia, United States of America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, United Arab Emirates…

FAQS

The product is designed to fit your needs?

It is an undeniable fact that the product must be adapted to the specific needs of the client. There are local laws, including requirements for labelling or transportation, certifications,regulations, rules or laws.

Each work or application has a specificity that makes it unique. However, on the basis of this conviction, we cannot forget the absolute truism that a Safe Containment need for a usual type of pollutant should not be very different from one country to another or from one client to another. The Safe Containment objective is achieved based on certain limits which are common around the world.

Textured or Smooth Geomembrane?

A textured product is either needed or is not. This apparent truism needs to be remembered in many cases in which a product is specified for a project which clearly does not qualify to be designated as textured yet is designated as such, creating a huge confusion about the uncertainty of the client’s needs.

If the client does not clarify they require, it is hardly feasible to offer the right solution in conditions comparable to any concurrent company.

Is a Geomembrane with a wider roll better?

There is a technical limit for manufacturing geomembranes. In high density polyethylene (HDPE), this is 7.5 to 8m. Beyond this limit, either the raw material is not an HDPE and is instead a softer material which enables the extrusion-header system of the machine to complete the geomembrane transformation cycle, or the uniform thickness or thermal treatment parameters of the raw material have been seriously compromised. Within these limits and exceeding a minimum width, under which it would be unreasonable to present a product for the Safe Containment application, the roll width is the choice of the manufacturer, usually subject to the presentation format and transport cost optimisation.

There is hardly any difference between the cost of machines for given widths.

Within these limits, it is true that a wider roll relieves installation costs in large projects by a small percentage; however it is always at the expense of a higher cost of handling bulk unit weight of the roll or overruns in the finishing of curves or corners.

Differences between LLDPE  and HDPE?

Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) are raw materials which are similar in terms of composition, but very different in their behaviour, as has already been discussed in previous sections.

HDPE has become a global standard for Safe Containment applications precisely for its unique properties and marketing an LLDPE as an HDPE in these applications is tantamount to offering a substitute product without any benefit to the client. Differentiating them is very simple. Requiring the MFI parameter would be sufficient. Below 1.2 for 190/5kg is an HDPE, and above is not. It’s as simple as that.

What is the thickness of the product?

A property that is apparently very obvious to determine, such as the thickness of a geomembrane, becomes guesswork. We distinguish between average thickness and tolerance in ± a specific percentage %, according to the industrial rolling process followed.

The property is clearly defined up to this point. The client may even be convinced of actually  purchasing a particular product weight equivalent to the surface by the average thickness and product density. It is a physical principle and it would enable comparing different products with one another.

The confusion arises when “nominal” thicknesses are mentioned, leaving these up to the manufacturer who “designates” his product as a specific thickness when phrases such as the average minimum thickness is the nominal thickness “less” 10% and the tolerance is -10%, appear in its description. In short, the product could actually be at least 20% of the “nominal” thickness. We’ll leave the significance of this to the discretion of the Client.