Jan H. Schut
Materials: Automotive PP Compound Combines Glass & Wheat Fibers
A. Schulman Inc. in Akron, Ohio, commercialized the first wheat-fiber/PP compound last year to replace 20% talc-filled PP in an automotive part
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Solving the Puzzle of Chinese Bags
How do the Chinese get such high quality at such low cost? They have been accused of dumping, but Chinese bag makers are mostly small mom-and-pop businesses that survive on razor-thin profit margins. Their plants and the way they run them are like nothing you’ve ever seen.
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Recycling & Scrap Reclaim at NPE 2003
Most of the news to be found at NPE in post-consumer recycling comes from Europe and concerns direct recycling of PET flake into sheet without repelletizing.
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Compounding & Mixing at NPE 2003
Torque levels and output capacities of corotating twin-screw compounders coming to NPE are higher than ever.
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Extrusion at NPE 2003
NPE is typically a competitive display of the biggest, most dramatic equipment machine builders can muster.
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No End to Resin Price Hikes
Although the worst may be over in soaring oil and natural-gas prices, recent hikes are still percolating through the petrochemical derivatives supply chain. So there’s no slowdown in commodity-resin price hikes, and engineering resins are going up too—some of them for the first time in more than two years.
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Entrepreneur Puts Mixed-Polymer Recycling On Track to Success
Polywood Inc. in Edison, N.J., uses mixed recycled plastics to make fiber-reinforced structural profiles for railroad ties, I-beams, and decks.
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Three Friends Team Up For a Second Compounding Venture
When Robert Lapierre, David Valenzky, and Thomas Lacey were in their late 30s and early 40s, the three friends started a custom compounding business to gether.
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Melt Fracture or Interfacial Instability? Different Ills Needs Different Cures
In blown film, clarity is often considered synonymous with quality.
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E-Collaboration Is Coming (But More Slowly Than Expected)
Use of internet e-collaboration in plastics remains very small-scale, but big auto-parts suppliers are giving it a push.
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Close-Up On Technology - Interchangeable Dam Adds Versatility to Screw
A new barrier screw has removable keys to change the dam height, allowing the screw to be tuned for highest throughput with resins as different as LLDPE and nylon, says the screw’s designer, Robert Dray, president of R.
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A Family Film Business Goes High-Tech
Papa, as Norman Rabenstein is fondly called on the shop floor, brought his family up to make plastic film.
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