Pigments are powdered materials that provide color by absorbing or reflecting different parts of the sun's visible light spectrum. They also have independent, distinctive IR reflective characteristics. Pigments that exhibit high IR-reflectivity for a...
(3 Member Reactions)
Traditionally, formulators have worked hard to ensure that the polymers and additives used for packaging do not have any taste or odor that would interact with the package contents or negatively affect the consumer's perception. In some cases,...
(1 Member Reaction)
The introduction of polymer based structures as packaging materials for foodstuffs has been increasing over the last decades. The main commercial appeal of these materials lies in their ability to offer a broad variety of tailor-made properties and...
(1 Member Reaction)
Worldwide, fires kill or injure several tens of thousands of people, and result in huge property losses. To fight against fire risks, there is no choice but to use fire resistant solutions. To avoid main traps linked to health and corrosion, the...
(10 Member Reactions)
Microbes grow if they have moisture, the right temperature, and a food source, such as exposed wood. Mold and mildew fungi can grow on WPC deck surfaces. In addition, decay fungi can consume wood that is not encapsulated by the plastic, causing wood...
To avoid competition with food crops, raw materials for bioplastics are chosen among agricultural, urban or industrial wastes and carbon dioxide. Processing methods can follow microbial, chemical or mechanical ways producing monomers or polymers. End...
Scratch and mar resistance of plastics is an important property in applications like appliances and automotive, where customers perceive long-term scratch and mar resistance as a sign of quality. The Scratch Consortium, based in the Polymer...
(3 Member Reactions)
Utilization of optical fiber cables in metro as well as long-haul networks is increasing exponentially. Duct & Direct-Buried cables has always been the mainstay for all OSP applications. Rodent attacks have been a major cause for heavy...
End-of-life wastes, several hundred of thousand tonnes a day, must be considered as a plastics mine needing new views on collection, recycling and reprocessing. A careful selection of sources, a suitable method of treatment save fossil fuels, raw...
(1 Member Reaction)
Cyclic butylene terephthalate (CBT) resins combine the advantages of thermosets and thermoplastics in a water-like viscosity material that after reacting becomes the engineering thermoplastic polybutylene terephthalate (PBT). CBT® 100 polymer has...
(5 Member Reactions)
The terms "biodegradable" and "compostable" are defined in official EN, ASTM, and ISO testing standards, but they are not necessarily well understood by the public or even by the plastics industry as a whole. They are often used interchangeably,...
(4 Member Reactions)
'Bioplastics' is an industry-accepted term, although its definition is not always clear. There is a Bioplastics Magazine, a "Green and Bio-Plastics" channel on Omnexus, and many bioplastics organizations, including the European Bioplastics...
(4 Member Reactions)
Biopolymers derived from renewable biomass sources ensure the conservation of fossil resources, the utilisation of renewable vegetal resources with its geopolitics involvements, the consumption of CO2 instead of its emission....
(6 Member Reactions)
Most common fillers and reinforcements have a micrometric size and must be used at levels in the order of 10% and more.From a strictly geometrical point of view, the size reduction of a particle, sphere or platelet with a constant shape factor, leads...
(2 Member Reactions)
Polymers have often an hydrophobic and soft surface with a somewhat unappealing look and a low surface tension, which is harmful for adhesion of inks, paints and other coating, adhesive joining, decoration, scratch resistance.
For many plastic parts...
(1 Member Reaction)
Recycling means the reuse of the waste materials in a production process for the original purpose or for other purposes excluding energy recovery. Reprocessing can be done using mechanical or chemical methods to reuse the wasted material. Mechanical...
(1 Member Reaction)
The manufacture of parts and goods needs polymers, additives, reinforcements consuming raw materials and energy, and producing pollution, carbon dioxide and other gases favouring the global warming and pollutants harmful for human, animal and vegetal...
Static charge generated on the non-conductive surfaces of polymers is a long identified issue. Plastic materials typically have a combination of high surface resistivity (1014 to 1016 Ohms at 20°C and 50% relative humidity) and low dielectric...
Adhesive bonding is one of the main methods used to join
1. a material and a coating such as inks and paints for the most common
2. parts processed in two steps, for example injected tail lights in two or three colours
3. several parts to produce...
Colorants and special effects are the largest group of a broad range of additives and masterbatches available to alter or tailor the appearance, functionality, performance, safety, cost effectiveness, and processing efficiency of resins that assist...
REACH, RoHS, WEEE, regulations concerning specific applications such as food contact, and voluntary bans decided by trade associations or by companies reduce the suitable fire retardancy formulations leading to HFFR solutions based on metal...
Rich Novomesky, Strategic Business Manager at Ampacet Corporation has broad commercial, technical and manufacturing experience in packaging and food processing.
His perspective encompasses packaging functionality and aesthetics, as well as how to...
Electrical and electronic (EE) applications - including housings, wire and cable, and internals such as connectors – are the largest market for flame retardants in plastics globally. Flame retardant use in EE is growing strongly. The need for flame...
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) based materials are widely used in medical device applications chiefly because of their physical properties, ease of fabrication, and compatibility with intravenous (IV) solutions and blood. PVC products commonly used in...
Natural fibres were the first fibres used for thermosetting resin reinforcement but slowly they fell into disuse for performance and environmental problems principally due to low mechanical properties, high moisture absorption, ageing sensitivity...
Chien and Kiang [1, 2] oxidized polypropylene (PP) at temperatures between 240 and 289° C. The products were separated by gas chromatography (GC) and online identification was by an interfaced GC peak identification system. The major products are...
Fillers for plastics are basically divided into inactive (or extender) fillers and active (or functional) fillers. Fillers are very widely used in the plastics industry, and their growth rates currently exceed those of the resins themselves. They are...
Don't forget that polymers are always tackled by their chemical or physical weak points. Consequently, the study of degradation depends on our capability to see and quantify:
1. the degradation that is an evolution of aspect, colour, mechanical or...
Up-to-date trends in polymer industry include the respect of environment, ecology requirements and economy of resources and energy. The manufacture, use and disposal of polymers build a complex context whose optimization needs much thought to develop...
The actual context is favourable to high purity banning recognized harmful elements and molecules, or simply suspected materials or impurities according to the ‘precautionary principle'. Polymers, additives and reinforcement materials cannot escape...
Most polymers are generally insulating. Electrostatic build-up and discharges are widespread, leading to numerous issues of very various seriousness, from minor to very serious and even dreadful ones:
1. Dust and other pollutant attraction with...
Slip additives reduce friction between films, and between film and equipment, thereby facilitating movement through converting and downstream packaging operations. Slip additive effectiveness is measured in terms of the static or kinetic Coefficient...
Broader use of plastics in building products and a growing desire to minimize painting of automotive parts is increasing the need for reliable predictions of light stability and weathering performance. Accelerated weathering lab instruments and...
Poly(vinylchloride) (PVC) is one of the lowest cost, highest volume commodity plastics used today due to its versatility, chemical and mechanical properties, ability to accept a wide variety of additives.
Rigid PVC is appreciated for its stiffness...
Crystallinity of semi-crystalline polymers is responsible for many of the characteristics such as dimensional stability, clarity, toughness...
For a defined part and process, the crystallinity is controlled by the polymer structure, the formulation,...
Molecules can be banned for various reasons (See Figure 'Ban-Origins'): human risks, carcinogenic, mutagenic, reproductively-toxic effects; pollution of air, water, land; persistent, bio-accumulative substances; greenhouse effect. Ban can be total or...
Bacteria, fungi and algae can affect the aesthetic and physical properties of a plastic or a rubber by causing black spotting or discoloration, pink staining, odour and polymer degradation, fouling etc. Biocides used to fight these microorganisms...
VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds form a broad heterogeneous category of chemical compounds, some of which pose a health hazard and can also lead to greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion and acidification of the globe atmosphere. Others pose...
Plastics, rubbers, TPE, composites are not monolithic materials but are made from the association of several entities, one or several polymers, fillers and chemicals. When the polymers are immiscible, one of them forms a continuous phase and the...
The economic requirements, the environmental regulations, the low processing costs of emergent nations, the more and more reduced design times worsen the competition and push converters to manufacture cheaper and faster. Multiple ways are...
Processing of a polymer is inherently more or less easy according to its nature, microstructure, morphology, molecular weight, ramifications etc. Moreover, for a given polymer, the processing is more difficult when the level of filler increases....
One of the most important technological advances in the field of plastics over the last half of the twentieth century has been the extensive replacement of metals with plastics. While plastics have been engineered to outperform steel and other...
Editor's Highlight!
Solution Case Studies Case studies on technical solutions brought to the market: