Engineering Resins
Garbage In, Good Plastics Out
Experts consider it the most high-tech recycling plant in the world: Schwarzataler Kunststoff in Germany takes dirty bottles and film from post-consumer recycling and turns them into automotive and other compounds in a fully automated process.
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Plastic-Metal Hybrids Make Headway On and Off the Road
Plastic-metal hybrids are replacing all-steel structures in automotive front-end modules at an accelerated rate.
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NPE News Wrap-Up: Materials
New materials at NPE 2003 target automotive, appliance, and packaging sectors. Engineering thermoplasticsdominate the news, but there were also severalnew TPEs and a few polypropylene introductions.
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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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'Father of Long Glass' Delivers a New Baby
Ron Hawley's lawyer keeps a collection of napkins and other bits of paper on which, over the years, Hawley drew the first sketches of a remarkable series of inventions.
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Biodegradable Polyesters: Packaging Goes Green
The U.S. is catching up with Europe and Asia in exploring the potential of biodegradable polyesters in flexible and rigid packaging. Because of their cost, these resins often find use in blends with other degradable materials.
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Why Long-Glass Molders Are Compounding In-Line
Compounding raw fiberglass directly into thermoplastic molded parts is growing rapidly in Europe, and now it’s coming here. D-LFT, as it’s called, promises to make large parts cheaper and stronger—but with new technological risks and higher up-front investment costs.
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SBCs Are Back With More Capacity & New Grades
Two years ago, a supply crisis struck the SBC market. Some customers were forced to switch to other materials. Today, SBC producers hope to lure back processors with a surge of new resin capacity, new domestic suppliers, and new grades and applications.
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Metallocene VLDPE Is a Tough New Contender for Flexible Packaging
A new metallocene catalyzed, very-low-density polyethlyene (mVLDPE) from ExxonMobil Chemical Co., Houston, reportedly offers the excellent toughness associated with mLLDPE plus lower heat-seal temperatures and other advantages over conventional Ziegler-Natta VLDPEs or ULDPEs for flexible packaging.
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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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