PT Blog

Last week, I participated in a pre-Earth Day Twitter chat with Jeff Wooster of Dow Chemical, Kim Holmes of the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS), Envision Plastics and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. The Twitter chat, hosted by PLASTICS, was designed to spark discussion about sustainability, innovations in plastics and promoting a better world. And it did.

It’s always important to get the word out about plastics and sustainability but perhaps even more so as this year’s Earth Day theme was to “End Plastic Pollution.”

Here is an interesting take on the potential implications of the Chinese tariffs on the U.S. and global petrochemical and plastics industries from key IHS Markit experts.

Included are Mark Eramo, v.p., global business development, oil, midstream, downstream and chemicals; Debnil Chowdhury, executive director, natural gas liquids; Joel Morales, senior director, polyolefins Americas; Nick Vafiadis, v.p., plastics, and Hazel Kreuz, executive director, inorganics, discuss the potential implications of the Chinese tariffs on the U.S. and global petrochemical and plastics industries.

Recently, we announced the PT Problem Solvers contest. The contest asks plastics professionals to join us in facing, sharing and solving plastics industry problems by submitting photos or videos (check out the original post). The contest is also a really good way to celebrate this year’s premier problem-solving event, NPE2018, and a good excuse for us to giveaway some cool Plastics Technology gear.

Not all vacuum conveying systems are the same. Especially for powder materials, it’s critical that plastics processors look closely at how their powder will behave under certain conditions before choosing a conveying system.

Processors might describe materials as being fine, cohesive, free-flowing or non-free-flowing, and need to identify key properties such as bulk density, particle size and shape and chemical compatibility. Some combustible powders pose serious safety risks and others are sensitive to environmental conditions such as elevation, temperature or humidity.

There is definitely an uptick in the frequency with which we are hearing about new materials developments for additive manufacturing. More often, it appears that the more interesting 3D filaments are the result of partnerships between materials and/or additive suppliers and filament manufacturers. Take a look at two excellent examples which will only serve to push additive manufacturing ahead.

● Finnish nanodiamond manufacturer Carbodeon Oy (represented in U.S. by Silicon Sense Inc., Nashua, N.H.) and Dutch 3D printing specialist Tiamet 3D have launched what is said to be the world’s first nanodiamond-enhanced filaments for 3D printing.