Polyamides, like other polymers, have a wide range of properties. Developments by the Swiss company Ems-Grivory support this statement. They offer polyamide types ranging from transparent to "piano black". Compounds can be added to further increase the range of plastics. This is demonstrated by the German company Bada. In the field of technical development, digital tech is new in the development of compaund.
One of the challenges for the development of plastics manufacturers and processors is to ensure that their products meet the increasingly stringent fire, environmental and health and safety requirements, while maintaining the functional properties guaranteed in different industries. Some of the new products proposed for the construction, fibre and textile industries are presented in Part 1 of this publication, while new materials for the electrical and electronics industries are presented in Part 2.
Polyamides form the largest group of engineering plastics, are able to meet requirements in many areas and therefore have a very wide range of applications, from the automotive industry to the electrical and electronics industry, the manufacture of various instrumentation components and industrial parts. In their development, various additives play a major role to make the polyamide suitable for the specific application and to enhance the performance they can achieve. Additives can also help to preserve the properties of polyamides during recycling.
In many parts of the world, huge aquariums show marine life up close. This attracts large crowds. Poly(methyl methacrylate) is an excellent and proven material for aquariums, but only if it is used with the right expertise. Failure to do so can lead to disastrous mistakes.
Improving the production capacity of the injection moulding process is important to ensure a high-quality product. A key factor is the perfect filling of the mould cavity and the optimum feeding of the optimum amount of slurry until the end of the post-pressure. Product quality is influenced by a number of factors: the correct design of the product, the selection of the raw material, the design and preparation of the injection moulding cycle, the use of the right size and capability of the injection moulding machine and finally the setting of near-optimal injection parameters. Of course, these factors interact with each other.
The proliferation of alcoholic motor fuels, the development of technical solutions for fuel injection and the tightening of emission limits have made it necessary to modify the materials used in multi-layer petrol hoses. It is necessary to substitute feedstocks from which fuels can only release very small amounts. In order to optimise the properties of coextruded plastic tubes, it is important to take into account the viscosity of the fluids, the melting point and Tg of the polymers and their location in the structure. Novatec offers new calibrating and pulling/cutting equipment with significant improvements, mainly for the extrusion of sanitary tubes and hoses, which increase product reliability and reproducibility, while simplifying equipment handling and maintenance.
There's no denying that collaborative robots (cobots) are popular, especially with small and medium-sized enterprises, which provide the largest customer base. The growth is remarkable: the global market for cobots is expected to grow by more than 60% in 2018 and will account for nearly 30% of the industrial robot market by 2027, according to market research group Interact Analysis.
For the production of multilayer bottles by extrusion blow moulding, polyamide can also be used to reduce oxygen permeability. In one study, the variation of the most important properties from the blowing point of view, i.e. the melt viscosity and the deformability modulus, was investigated under the influence of different modifiers. In another work, the effect of the degree of crosslinking on the blowing behaviour of silicone rubber was investigated.
Rotational moulding accounts for only 0.7% of plastics processing technologies. Still, it is worth keeping an eye on new developments, as pressure-free technology offers significant economic advantages for some products. The largest amount of polyethylene is processed with this technology. A PA6 grade has been developed which can be rotationally moulded into automotive fuel tanks.
Record producers have changed recently, with many companies selling their interests to other or new players. In the sheet industry, there is an increasing focus on the recycling of post-consumer waste and its reintroduction into production. Chemical foaming, co-extrusion and spheronisation also offer new opportunities in the production of foamed sheets.
Additive manufacturing technology has made significant, albeit incremental, progress in recent years, a phenomenon described as a "slow revolution" by a prominent figure in the field. According to a senior technical executive at HP Inc. in the US, the most important developments in 2019 will be in the areas of generative design, bio-printing and multi-colour functional component manufacturing. The "slow revolution" is expected to continue, with the expansion of materials with different properties and the systemic integration of 3D printing into manufacturing processes also expected to be important factors. However, such processes still face a number of challenges today.
Without plastics, medical technology would be much poorer today, and the demand for medical plastics is growing. It is no coincidence that more and more companies are venturing into the production of plastics, which have to be manufactured and processed under very strict conditions. In this issue, we present films for medical use (Part 1), and in the next issue, we will look at some of the latest developments in medical tubes (Part 2).
Investment by Indian packaging manufacturers in Hungary In 2018, two Indian plastics companies started building new factories in Hungary. Flex Films is establishing a flexible plastic packaging plant in Récsa. The investment is worth HUF 23 billion, with a government grant of HUF 2.8 billion. Rétság is a small town in Nógrád County, 55 km from Budapest and 25 km from Balassagyarmat. It has a population of 2,700. The investment will create 170 new jobs.
The use of bioplastics is expected to grow by around 25% globally over the next five years, according to the chief executive of European Bioplastics, the trade association for European bioplastics manufacturers. Increasingly, users and brand owners are looking for products that are available in the long term ('sustainable') and to meet this demand, researchers are developing newer, better performing and more versatile bioplastics. The global capacity of biofuels producers will grow from around 2.11 million tonnes in 2018 to 2.62 million tonnes in 2023.
According to the head of economics at the Swiss Plastics Industry Association (Branchenverband Swiss Plastics), the mood among companies in the Swiss plastics industry has never been as good as it was last year. Turnover was up, order books in the manufacturing sector improved and profits rose. In 2017, after two negative years, turnover in the sector rose by CHF 5.61T4T to CHF 14.5 billion compared to 2016. A smaller increase is expected next year, but the pace of growth is expected to remain sustained. They are over the 2015 "franc shocks", when the value of the EUR depreciated against the Swiss franc, reducing demand for Swiss plastic products, and Swiss companies have switched from buying materials in their own currency to the euro.
A new law on the use of plastics in packaging is about to be issued in the EU. This would include taxes, bans and restrictions. The plastics and packaging industries are strongly opposed. They say that the anti-plastics campaign is full of politics, ignorance and sensationalism. The press appeals to emotions with dramatic images of floating islands of rubbish in the oceans, and nowhere is any data on the proposed substitutes for plastics published to characterise their impact on the environment. Plastics manufacturers, on the other hand, are constantly improving the recyclability of their products, increasing the proportion of recycled plastics and adapting to ever stricter standards.
Today, a small proportion of plastic waste is recycled as plastic in developed countries, but a very large proportion - mainly that which cannot be recycled - ends up in landfills. But they could be recycled by breaking them down into their raw materials. In the USA, for example, plastics could be pyrolysed to produce diesel oil. A relatively large proportion of PET is recycled back into production, but not all used PET is made into regranulate suitable for food packaging. A Canadian inventor is able to make an excellent food-grade polymer from PET waste fished from the oceans by repolymerising it after depolymerisation.
Samsung products get eco-friendly packaging instead of plastic Samsung (the largest South Korean industrial conglomerate giant, founded in 1938) is replacing the packaging of its products with environmentally friendly materials. The changeover is scheduled to start in the first half of 2019. Instead of plastic, it will use paper and possibly recycled or bio-based materials. Smaller electronic devices, mobile phones, tablets ("gadgets") will be sold in paper, replacing the current thermoformed plastic packaging. Samsung is also changing the design of their phone chargers. The glossy outer surface will be replaced by a more matt one, eliminating the need for PE-LD protective film.
The aim of my research is to investigate the stabilising efficacy of natural antioxidants, which are flavonoids, under polyethylene (PE) processing conditions. In the present study, the efficacy of the flavonoid quercetin (K) and the flavonolignan silymarin (Sz) was compared. One of the natural antioxidants was added to the additive-free polymer powder as a primary stabilizer at a concentration of 0-500 ppm, and a mixture of Sandostab PEPQ compounds at 1000 ppm was used as a secondary stabilizer. The powder mixture was processed by six-step degradative extrusion, and the resulting samples were subjected to functional group analysis, flow index and thermooxidative stability measurements, and colour change characterisation.
