End Markets
New Generation Nylon/ABS AlloysTarget Automobile Interiors
A family of highly compatibilized alloys of nylon 6 and ABS for injection molding has been launched by Rhodia Engineering Plastics.
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Blow Molding Gets Green Light in Detroit
Technical blow molding is changing the contours of automotive interior trim, load-bearing floors, seat-back systems, and under-hood ducting. Favorable economics, process refinements, and the emergence of tailored materials and equipment are taking the brakes off blow molding's earlier limits, and pointing a way to cost cutting.
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Fuel Cells Jolt Plastics Innovation
Optimists view fuel-cell vehicles and power appliances as a coming bonanza for plastics processors. They see potential demand for billions of pounds of thermosets and engineering thermoplastics in plates, membranes, manifolds, pumps, plumbing, and more. But molding challenges and cost hurdles mean success won’t come easily.
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Nanocomposites Broaden Roles in Automotive, Barrier Packaging
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.
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In-Line Compounding of Long-Glass/PP Gains Strength in Automotive Molding
Another approach to long-fiber thermoplastic (LFT) molding is gaining credibility for producing a range of structural and semi-structural automotive parts. It is called direct LFT processing, and is already widely practiced in Europe.
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New Polypropylene/PPO Alloys Fill a Cost/Performance Gap
A brand-new family of thermoplastics for automotive and other markets offers an intermediate range of cost and performance between those of TPOs and engineering resins such as nylon, ABS, long-glass PP, and some modified PET and PBT materials. GE Plastics, Pittsfield, Mass., has broadened its Noryl range of PPO alloys by adopting a new matrix material: polypropylene. New patent-pending technology allows the incompatible PP and PPO materials to be blended so as to create new balances of stiffness, toughness, and heat resistance in a moderate price range. Initial Noryl PPX grades are priced between $1.20 and 1.80/lb.
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Commingled Plastic Waste: New Gold Mine for Automotive Processors
Instead of going to landfills, previously unusable mixed waste like auto shredder residue is yielding a new trove of inexpensive engineering resins for car parts. Sortation technologies derived from the mining industry can pull out usable ABS, PC, acrylic, PP, TPO, and PPO alloys.
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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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Medical Tubing Coextrusion Brings A New Level of Care
Coextrusion is on the increase in tubing for medical uses, with more layers, more exotic materials, and much thinner walls. These require unprecedented levels of dimensional accuracy and flaw detection.
Read MoreNew Software Makes 3D CAD Easier To Learn, Use and Afford
You can now can leapfrog the previous obstacles of cost, complexity, and a long learning curve.
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