PT Blog

Loop Industries is seeking to bring to market what they call the ‘upcycled’ plastics economy. Loop has emerged with truly transformational technology that allows no and low value plastics to be diverted, recovered and recycled endlessly into new, virgin-quality Loop PET plastic.

Loop announced a joint venture with petrochemical company Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited to manufacture and commercialize sustainable polyester resin to meet the growing global demand from beverage and consumer packaged goods companies. This partnership brings together Indorama Venture’s manufacturing footprint and Loop’s proprietary science and technology.

What appears to be the first TPU that is based on carbon dioxide (CO²) technology is newly available from Covestro. The company first developed and is now marketing its new cardyon polyether carbonate polyols, which are produced with the aid of CO².

With the recent launch of Desmopan 37385A the company now offers the first representative of a new series of TPUs containing the new polyether carbonate polyols based on CO² technology.

On Oct. 10, Euromap—the European association of plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers—published the first drafts , or “Release Candidates,” of three OPC-UA based interfaces for mold-temperature-control devices (Euromap 82.1), hot runners (Euromap 82.2), and LSR dosing systems (Euromap 82.3). The first is an update of a Release Candidate first published in February; the others are brand-new. These interfaces are intended to standardize data-exchange capabilities for different equipment manufacturers.

The first finished OPC-UA specification was Euromap 77, defining interfaces between injection molding machines and MES (manufacturing execution systems) programs. It was published last May. An expert group is working on an interface for extrusion lines—both the line as a whole and its separate individual components. First drafts are expected to be published by the end of this month. (For more details, see here.)

Commodity resin pricing trends, perhaps particularly in fourth quarter, are always interesting. A combination of higher raw material prices for crude oil, ethane and ethylene; strong demand; and the impact of tariffs helped drive prices of PE, PS, PVC and PET upwards at the end of third quarter. PP, meanwhile, moved slightly down.

Overall projections for the remainder of the year are for flat pricing with the potential for a slight uptick in the cases of PVC, PET, and PP, according to purchasing consultants from Resin Technology, Inc. (RTi), Fort Worth, Texas; senior editors from Houston-based PetroChemWire (PCW,); and CEO Michael Greenberg of the Plastics Exchange in Chicago. Here’s a look at projections for each.

Proper venting is essential to molding a defect-free part. Without it, air and gas are trapped in the mold, compressing and heating as the cavity fills. Ultimately, this can negatively impact the injection molding cycle in three major ways: higher risk of part defects; higher cleaning and maintenance costs; and longer cycle times.

Trapped gas is one of the most common causes of part burns and can also lead to short shots and voids; blemishes; and discernible knit lines that weaken the part.