Materials
TP Composites: New Option in Lightweight PP/Glass Composites
From its Detroit-area offices, Swiss-based Quadrant Plastics Composites (QPC) has introduced a family of lightweight reinforced thermoplastic (LWRT) composites to North America.
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Garbage In, Good Plastics Out
Experts consider it the most high-tech recycling plant in the world: Schwarzataler Kunststoff in Germany takes dirty bottles and film from post-consumer recycling and turns them into automotive and other compounds in a fully automated process.
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New Metallocene TP Elastomers Tackle Films, Fibers, TPOs
The Vistamaxx family of propylene-ethylene specialty elastomers recently unveiled by ExxonMobil Chemical (see Your Business In Brief, August 2003) holds promise in a broad range of applications from very soft fabrics and films to very hard TPOs.
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NPE News Wrap-Up: Materials
New materials at NPE 2003 target automotive, appliance, and packaging sectors. Engineering thermoplasticsdominate the news, but there were also severalnew TPEs and a few polypropylene introductions.
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New-Generation SEBS Has Processing Advantages
Kraton Polymers has launched a new styrene-ethylene-butadiene-styrene (SEBS) elastomer family that delivers better flow, lower warpage, and greater adhesion to other thermoplastics.
Read More‘Self-Reinforcing’ Thermoplastic Is Harder, Stronger, Stiffer Without Added Fibers
By the end of 2003, sample quantities will become available of a specialty high-performance thermoplastic whose inventors call it the first readily processable rigid-rod polymer.
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'Father of Long Glass' Delivers a New Baby
Ron Hawley's lawyer keeps a collection of napkins and other bits of paper on which, over the years, Hawley drew the first sketches of a remarkable series of inventions.
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Why Long-Glass Molders Are Compounding In-Line
Compounding raw fiberglass directly into thermoplastic molded parts is growing rapidly in Europe, and now it鈥檚 coming here. D-LFT, as it鈥檚 called, promises to make large parts cheaper and stronger鈥攂ut with new technological risks and higher up-front investment costs.
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SBCs Are Back With More Capacity & New Grades
Two years ago, a supply crisis struck the SBC market. Some customers were forced to switch to other materials. Today, SBC producers hope to lure back processors with a surge of new resin capacity, new domestic suppliers, and new grades and applications.
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Metallocene VLDPE Is a Tough New Contender for Flexible Packaging
A new metallocene catalyzed, very-low-density polyethlyene (mVLDPE) from ExxonMobil Chemical Co., Houston, reportedly offers the excellent toughness associated with mLLDPE plus lower heat-seal temperatures and other advantages over conventional Ziegler-Natta VLDPEs or ULDPEs for flexible packaging.
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