December 2000 Issue
December 2000
Features
Featured articles from the latest issue of Plastics Technology
Materials
To succeed in Detroit, it’s not enough for polypropylene-based TPO elastomers to be low-cost, lightweight, easily processable, and recyclable. They also have to look good for the life of the vehicle.
Read MoreThermoforming Attacks!
My contact with thermoforming dates back to the fall of 1975, when I wrote my first feature on the subject. What I heard from processors back then was that thermoforming was just beginning to change from “black art” to science.
Read MoreMaterials Close-Up
To succeed in Detroit, it’s not enough for polypropylene-based TPO elastomers to be low-cost, lightweight, easily processable, and recyclable. They also have to look good for the life of the vehicle.
Read MoreMove Over BLOW MOLDING: Make Way for Thermoformed Gas Tanks
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.
Read MoreCopolyester TPE Film
From building construction to medical supplies to food packaging, copolyester thermoplastic elastomers are seeing a resurgence of interest in high-tech films and extrusion coatings that combine low-temperature flexibility, heat resistance, elasticity, permeability to water vapor, and chemical resistance. Although some of these niche applications have existed for as long as 15 years, new ones are now emerging and interest among both extrusion processors and end users is expanding after a period of relative quiescence.
Read MoreShuttle Mold Ups Output of PET Preforms
PET preform molders can achieve a big jump in productivity without having to invest in special machines with rotating platens.
Read MoreYour Business in Brief - December 2000
Dover Buys Chlorowax Business Dover Chemical Corp., Dover, Ohio, has bought the Chlorowax chlorinated paraffin business of Occidental Chemical Corp., Dallas.
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