Extrusion
Understanding Grooved Feed
U.S. processors still have some catching up to do when it comes to getting the most out of grooved-feed extruders. But decades of European experience offer lessons on how to use grooved feeds to run even resins like TPU, nylon, and PET.
Read MoreThe New Look in Plastic -- It's Paper!
Synthetic paper based on filled polyethylene or polypropylene film has been around for decades without causing much excitement--until recently.
Read MoreProcessors' Wish List: What's Your Million-Dollar Dream?
How would you spend a windfall of $10,000, $100,000, or $1 million added to your operating budget? Here’s what owners and managers of plastics plants said they would do with this dream cash.
Read MoreWood-Fiber Adds Stiffness and Value To Tight-Tolerance Tubes
Hollow tubing with a high loading of wood fiber is one of the newest products—and one of the trickiest—in the booming business of wood-filled thermoplastic extrusion.
Read MoreNew Catalyst Technologies Add Muscle to LLDPE Films
For processors looking to extrude stronger and tougher films, two firms recently came out with hexene-copolymer LLDPEs based on new catalyst technologies. Both resin families are poised to compete with octene LLDPE and metallocene LLDPE (mLLDPE), as well as other "super-hexene" grades.
Read MoreA Wave of Improvements in Mixing Tips
A new family of V-mixing sections for improved distributive mixing achieves intense chaotic mixing through "wavy" roots in flight lands and channels.
Read MoreCapacitance Gauges Come of Age For Blown-Film Thickness Control
Thanks to recent technical advances, relatively inexpensive capacitance thickness gauges reportedly are now stable enough for reliable closed-loop control, not just monitoring thickness variations. Another big step forward for capacitance gauges is the arrival of non-contact heads that can be mounted on the bubble instead of farther downstream on the layflat, thereby allowing quicker response to thickness variations.
Read MoreCoextrusion Adds Shine to PP For Thermoforming Large Parts
New coextruded resin combinations are making polypropylene a contender for large thermoformed parts in outdoor uses from pleasure boats to automotive exterior trim.
Read MorePP Engineering Alloys Branch Out Into Molding, Extrusion, Thermoforming
The Hivalloy line of in-reactor grafted alloys of polypropylene and amorphous resins from Montell Polyolefins, Wilmington, Del., is expanding its market reach with new grades, new developmental alloy families, and dramatic new applications. Besides injection molding, developing applications now include thermoformed sheet and even barrier packaging films.
Read MorePET Recycling Line Crystallizes While Chopping
A new method of recycling PET into pellets or directly into extruded sheet is said to save time and energy by combining crystallizing and drying with size reduction in one piece of equipment.
Read More
