Practical Processor
Your processing questions answered.

EXTRUSION & COMPOUNDING: Five-Layer Film Structures Set to Supplant Three Layers?
In blown film, equipment and material suppliers have come together to push five-layer technology into non-barrier applications previously held by three-layer films.

PVDF Film Can Now Be Biax Oriented
Parkinson Technologies Inc., Woonsocket, R.I., teamed up with Solvay Solexis, Inc., Thorofare, N.J., to produce what’s believed to be the first biaxially oriented PVDF film.

PP Sheet Gains Cold Impact Strength
Compression Roll Drawing (CRD), a patented machine-direction orientation (MDO) technique used for years to make tough plastic strapping, can add cold impact strength to PP sheet as well.

Extruding Biopolymers: Packaging Reaps Cost Benefit of Going 'Green'
Plastics made from renewable carbon chains, not fossil carbon from oil or gas, are suddenly a solid commercial reality. The draw isn’t just “green” marketing, but the “green” of stable prices not linked to petrochemicals.

MDO Films: Lots of Promise, Big Challenges
Machine-direction orientation is still discovering new market opportunities. But the technical difficulties are so great that some big projects never came of age. New equipment could make it easier.

NPE Newsfinder: Extrusion
NPE will show higher outputs of practically everything, as advances in grooved feeds, servo drives, screw torque, mixing screws, dies, and downstream cooling, cutting, and handling make everything run faster.