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New materials at K 2001 are weighted heavily toward the engineering variety, especially nylons, acetals, and TP polyesters. A large handful of polypropylenes round out the major news.

Producers of barrier food wraps are invading the exclusive club of medical film makers. The new guys are shaking things up by introducing more complex films to cut the cost of medical packaging.

Nano-sized particles have mega-potential in plastics because just a pinch does so much more than heavy loadings of other additives. Three recent conferences presented almost 200 papers on the feverish pace of ‘nano’ R&D on boosting plastics’ mechanical and barrier properties, flame retardancy, and electrical conductivity.

Olefinic TPEs originally comprised only two classes of rubber-modified polypropylene, known as TPO and TPV. More recently, these have been supplemented by new types of olefinic elastomers that can be used on their own or as the rubber component in TPO/TPV compounds. Additionally, a small handful of specialty TPEs using olefinic matrices occupy niche applications.

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. Running faster in turn requires a higher level of control, or you can just make a whole lot more bad product faster.

 Higher flow, higher heat, higher barrier, higher clarity, higher stiffness, lower durometer, lower smoke, lower odor—materials exhibits at the recent K 2004 show in Dusseldorf were stretching the bounds of processing and performance properties in all directions.

On the surface, the technology free-for-all feels like 1992 all over again. That was the first time makers of blow molded gas tanks faced California emissions standards that their technology couldn’t meet. The six-layer blow molded gas tank won that round, but today’s tanks won’t pass far tougher emissions standards coming in 2003 and 2004.