Month: June 2016

Weekly News Digest Week of 6/27/2016

The Front Page Newsroom

IBM discovers new recycling process to convert old smartphones and CDs

Dow cutting 2500 jobs in Dow Corning integration

A. Schulman sues form Citadel owners for claiming fraudulent business practices

A. Schulman still sees benefits from acquisition of Citadel

Man dies in press accident at injection molder in Auburn Hills MI

New lubricated TPV challenges rubber in gaskets and seals

BASF launches new global pigments brand

Company develops long glass fiber reinforced polyolefin sheet

Material prices flat

The next target of the anti-plastic crowd: your garden hose

Polypropylene prices lowest since 2009

DSM launches new polyamides for die cast metal replacement

 

 

The Confusing World of TPE

Diamond Rubber Company

There is an excellent albeit highly technical article in the April 2016 SPE magazine, Plastics Engineering, about the differences between thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) and thermoset rubber. You can read it here.

Because I talk primarily about thermoplastics here at The Weekly Pellet, I thought that I might expand on the article a little bit and talk about the different types of TPE that are commercially available.

Continue reading “The Confusing World of TPE”

The Trouble With Colors

Color television 2

Back when everyone was running injection molding machines with plungers, if you needed to color material, you had to have it pre-colored at a compounder. The compounder would melt the natural material down, blend in raw pigments and other additives and then re-pelletize the material.

The advent of screw type injection machines and color concentrates significantly reduced the cost of coloring plastic materials. However, running material blended with color concentrate has its challenges. It has to be mixed carefully and the material has to be processed carefully to get good results. Sometimes, even if you do everything right, you end up with nothing but problems.

Continue reading “The Trouble With Colors”

Weekly News Digest Week of 6/13/2016

Citizen Kane

After GM calls out Ford for their aluminum truck bed, Honda calls them both out with their composite truck bed. (video)

Chase Plastics announces new distribution center also here

Bemis develops line of all plastic shopping carts

Covestro opens CO2 to polycarbonate polyol plant

Bole injection molding machines coming to the USA

Growing supply and lackluster demand contributes to slide in PP, PE pricing

Senator concerned by Dow-Dupont Merger

Dow figures out a way recycle some multi-layer pouches

 

Plastics and Static Electricity

Van De Graaff Generator-4

I’m not sure if anyone does this anymore but when I was a kid it was great fun to shuffle your feet on carpeting and then zap your unsuspecting sibling with a nice static shock. This typically worked best if you had nylon carpeting and it was nice and dry in the house like in the winter time.

This worked because plastic is a great insulator and thus cannot dissipate static electricity very well. When we need to reduce the likelihood of static build up in plastics, we have some options. There are materials described as having anti-stat additives and other materials described as being statically dissipative and still others as being conductive. What’s the difference?

Continue reading “Plastics and Static Electricity”

The Tricky Business of Choosing Plastic for Food Contact Applications

1-tupperware-party-1950s-granger

When specifying materials for food contact applications, you have to consider the physical and thermal properties, whether it is safe for use in a food contact application and whether the material can handle repeated cleaning and/or dishwasher cycles. In addition to the above, you also have to consider the consumer’s perception of safety.

Continue reading “The Tricky Business of Choosing Plastic for Food Contact Applications”