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Packaging innovator Toyo Seikan in Japan was an early pioneer of coextrusion blow molding.

There was no shortage of interesting materials developments at K 2013, in particular high-performance engineering thermoplastics and thermoplastic composites—much of them geared to automotive/transportation.

Jim Rock has tried to put sawdust into plastics off and on for 20 years, long before wood composites became fashionable.

Silent, space-saving, energy-efficient, and high-torque, a new generation of ring-shaped motors is gaining a foothold in extrusion. A couple of hundred are already in use. Though most machine builders are reacting cautiously, adventurous processors are using them happily.

Under attack from fiber cement, PVC siding makers are exploring different technologies to shore up their future.

Gearless extrusion, cryogenic profile calibration, wireless data communications, and automatic start-up of blown film lines are just a few of the new ways to raise efficiency and output that were highlighted at NPE.

NPE will show higher outputs of practically everything, as advances in grooved feeds, servo drives, screw torque, mixing screws, dies, and downstream cooling, cutting, and handling make everything run faster.

Major Taiwanese injection and blow molding and extrusion machinery OEM s plan to broaden the appeal of their brands by providing higher-end technology solutions at prices competitive with European or Japanese machines.

Nanocomposites are gradually gaining acceptance in the mainstream of global plastics processing. These polymer compounds, containing relatively low loadings (under 6% by weight) of nanometer-sized mineral particles, are beginning to show up in polypropylene and TPO-based automotive exterior claddings, barrier beer bottles, nylon packaging films, polyethylene pipe and wire/cable coatings, and more.

The first two commercial devices have been installed to melt blend two or more polymers using a structured fluid-dynamic mixing process known as “chaotic advection.” This process creates unusual micro-scale and nano-scale phase morphologies that potentially can optimize extruded film properties using fewer materials and extruders than with highly layered coextrusion.