PT Blog

There was no doubt in my mind that at NPE2018 there would be a swirl of conversations on resin availability and resin pricing, in addition to new resins and compounds that better meet requirements in various key markets—from packaging, consumer electronics and automotive to bioplastics and high-performance 3D filaments.

So, it was no surprise to hear from a major, fast-growing distributor of a broad range of resins—Independence, Mo.-based PolySource—wanting to share the talking points they had prepared to discuss with NPE visitors, and beyond, concerned about potential nylon 66 shortages and escalating prices.

Color, texture and overall surface quality are crucial with any plastic part. Ensuring aesthetic quality, ABS resin made with mass polymerization uses fewer VOCs and impurities, and the proof is noticeable. Impurities such as VOCs, gels and other residual chemicals can have a noticeable impact on the quality of ABS resins, and ultimately the color of the product.

Traditionally, ABS resin has been made with a multi-step batch reaction process called emulsion polymerization, which requires the use of several processing additives such as emulsifiers and salts. The impurities from the additives can remain in the finished material in detectable levels, contributing to the resin’s yellowish tint.

The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom agreed to The Ocean Plastics Charter, an annex to the Charlevoix Blueprint for Healthy Oceans, Seas and Resilient Coastal Communities, at the G7 Summit this past weekend. The U.S. and Japan did not put their names on the resolution.

The charter seeks to move toward a more resource-efficient and sustainable approach to the management of plastics. Some of the actions include:

Registration is now open for Plastics Technology’s Extrusion 2018 Conference, Sept. 18-20 at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland. If you extrude film, sheet, pipe/profile/tubing, or compounded pellets, I strongly encourage you to take a close look at the technical program and list of sponsors and exhibitors. Once you do, I’m confident you’ll want to register to attend Plastics Technology’s fourth event devoted to all things extrusion.

Our first three extrusion conferences were held in Charlotte, N.C., with attendance growing each time to roughly 500 last year. But Cleveland and the surrounding area is an extremely strong market for extrusion and is within a day’s drive from many other cities strong in extrusion, such as Detroit, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York, and Toronto.

In late March, I blogged about Belgium’s EconCore’s extended capabilities of its ThermHex technology to produce continuous honeycombs from several high-performance thermoplastics. Now the company has partnered with Holland’s MEAF Machines to develop and install a fully-functional laboratory-scale extrusion and forming line at the company’s recently-refurbished R&D facilities in Leuven, Belgium.

At the heart of the line is a purpose-built 50-mm extruder equipped with a special 500-mm sheet die built by Austrian flat-die specialist EMO Extrusion Molding. EconCore patented ThermHex technology produces honeycomb structures from a single continuous thermoplastic sheet. This involves a sequence of thermoforming, folding and bonding operations.