Materials
Barrier-Enhanced PLA Is Under Development
NatureWorks LLC, Minnetonka, Minn., is exploring several barrier technologies including multilayer structures, coatings, and additives to improve the shelf-life performance of its polylactic acid (PLA) resins.
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SPE Automotive Awards Highlight Materials and Processing Advances
What’s new in plastics on cars?
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Four Ways to Fight Sky-High Resin Prices
There are lots of ways to economize on resin costs, but here are four that you may have overlooked: negotiating smarter resin contracts, buying “futures,” using recycled resins, and more efficient purging aids. The main idea is to give yourself more choices, no matter what direction resin prices go.
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Headlines for the Next 50 Years
Ever wonder what it would be like to get tomorrow’s newspaper today? After reviewing the most important technical developments of the past 50 years in our October issue, we asked industry experts to help us imagine the biggest headlines in plastics from now to 2055. What we got was a mixture of predictions of what will happen and a wish list of what should happen.
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Air, Land and Sea: Composites Advance on All Fronts
Part II of our report on the leading international composites show includes news for everything from high-tech aircraft manufacturing to boat building and automotive SMC.
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Higher-Performing Biopolymers Seek New Market Opportunities
A new generation of biodegradable polymers is going beyond conventional applications like bags and disposable cutlery and packaging.
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New Processes Give Automotive Molders An Edge in Cost and Productivity
Car makers' all-out effort to cut costs is giving rise to new paint-free technologies, including an innovative 'simultaneous-shot" injection molding process that was presented at the SPE Automotive Division's latest annual Innovation Awards ceremony.
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K 2004 Wrap-Up on Materials: Setting New Benchmarks for Processability and Performance
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.
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Engineering Thermoplastic Processes Like a Thermoset
The first quarter of 2005 will see the first commercial production of a dramatically new family of resins that offer the processing advantages of liquid thermosets plus the properties and recyclability of engineering thermoplastics.
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D-LFT Composites Aim for Auto Body Panels
Direct long-fiber thermoplastic (D-LFT) compounding and molding is getting ready to expand beyond non-appearance structural automotive parts to exterior body panels.
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