Blown film towers may have been scarce, but there was no shortage of new technology aimed at helping to make extrusion processors more profitable.

Compounding news at the show includes several new ways to feed low-bulk-density materials faster for higher outputs with corotating twin screws.

Injection MoldingHybrid Press Has Electric ClampNew injection presses that combine servo-electric and hydraulic movements to achieve high performance with energy efficiency will be discussed by Arburg Inc., Newington, Conn.

Low-priced Chinese-built extruders have arrived in North America to make pipe, sheet, film, and profiles. Some customers find them a good buy; others don’t. Here’s what you need to know.

Compounding machinery news at the K Show next month focuses on more torque, more output, and sometimes both, for kneaders, mixers, and twin-screw extruders.

Much of the compounding news at the NPE Show in Chicago in June ad-dressed the growing trend among extrusion processors to become compounders.

 NPE 2006 presented a bevy of features to make film, sheet, pipe, and profile extrusion more efficient.

Throughput capacities are going up for compounding equipment of all types.

Compounding extruder supplier Buss AG in Pratteln, Switzerland, has been purchased from the German Coperion Group by Swiss investor Fabrel Lotos and Buss management.

Compounding news at NPE included a wealth of new batch and continuous machines to mix in high loadings of wood flour, glass fiber, carbon black, and more exotic fillers.

For the second straight NPE show, the focus in compounding is on twin-screw machines that deliver more speed and torque—thus more output—than ever before. No fewer than six suppliers of twin-screw compounders are showing such machines. There’s something to see in in-line systems as well. And there’s plenty of news in PVC mixers and pelletizing equipment, too.

A radically different approach to in-line compounding of rigid PVC can replace a conventional batch mixer with a smaller, continuous, high-intensity mixing system.