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NPE News Wrap-Up: Testing & Measuring Instruments
There was no shortage of new developments in product inspection devices and instruments for testing color and appearance as well as mechanical, rheological, thermal, and weathering properties.
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NPE News Wrap-Up: Decorating & Painting
The Chicago show presented a whole new way to decorate. There were also plenty of improvements in ink-jet and pad printing, hot stamping, laser marking, and surface treating.
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Colorants and Additives Make a Splash at NPE 2003
Molders, extruders, and compounders found a host of new additives, including colorants, compatibilizers, impact modifiers, foaming agents, and processing aids.
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Decorating, Printing & Finishing at NPE 2003
NPE will amply reflect the wide variety of plastics decorating and finishing options, with exhibits of pad, screen, ink-jet, dry-offset, flexo, and gravure printing technologies, as well as hot stamping/heat-transfer decorating, laser marking, and spray painting.
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Polyurethane Foams Get Ready for HCFC Phase-out
With a critical deadline fast approaching, PUR foam formulators are mastering the art of using ‘cleaner' blowing agents. The latest PUR conference revealed new successes with these agents in a broad spectrum of rigid, flexible, and integral-skin foams.
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IMPACT: Which Test to Use? Which Instrument to Buy?
Impact testing is a complex and controversial subject, and one that is in the midst of change. These factors add challenge to selection of the most appropriate impact instrument for a processor's lab.
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K 2001: A Big Show for Additives
Plastics additives don't normally get star billing at trade shows, but this month's K 2001 exhibition (Oct. 23 to Nov. 1) in Dusseldorf, Germany, is different.
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RIM & Urethanes (K 2001 Preview)
New equipment at the K show will include a lab line for RIM-molded auto-interior skins, recirculating spray mixheads designed for open-pour RIM, and upgrades for making SRIM structural composites with a long-fiber injection system. Also to be featured are new automotive PUR foams for noise abatement, a glass-reinforced RIM system for interior soft-touch applications, amine catalysts for producing low-VOC automotive foams, and an overhead conveyor system for PUR mold carriers.
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Polymers as Additives
A pinch of one resin can teach another one new tricks. Take a look at the promising results with four novel property enhancers for thermoplastics and thermosets.
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Plastics That Conduct Heat
Helping electronics, lighting, and car engines keep cool are some new roles for hermoplastics that are formulated to replace metal or ceramic.
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Metallocene PP & PE Weld Strongly to Each Other
Multilayer film applications such as packaging and diapers are just two areas that could benefit from spot welding (instead of gluing) polyethylene to polypropylene. Normally these two resins show poor adhesion to each other. But two years of research at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and at ExxonMobil Chemical in Houston show that metallocene-catalyzed polyolefins can weld to each other with bond strengths much greater than are possible with conventional Ziegler-Natta catalyzed polyolefins.
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Rapid Prototyping: Pretty Soon, You Won't Be Able To Get Along Without It
Bigger, faster, more accurate machines and more durable materials threaten to make "RP" indispensable for product and tool development. Molders also find RP models aid accurate price quoting. Next up: ‘rapid manufacturing' of production parts.
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