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Packaging giant Amcor announced this week that it is expanding its North American thermoforming capabilities for the healthcare market. The addition of automated, state-of-the art thermoforming equipment at its healthcare manufacturing plant in Oshkosh, WI, will support increasing demand from customers in the medical, pharmaceutical, and consumer health sectors, said Amcor in the news release. The expansion also will allow customers to source thermoforms and companion die-cut lids from a…

Editor’s note: To mark National Drinking Straw Day last month, PlasticsToday published “A Brief History of the Drinking Straw.” That prompted Brad Laporte, CEO of WinCup, to share his thoughts. National Drinking Straw Day, observed recently on January 3, may seem like just another arbitrary celebratory date. However, in the context of the evolving landscape of sustainable materials, it serves as a testament to the transformative power of innovation. The…

The spot resin markets were very busy last week, reports the PlasticsExchange in its Market Update, with transactions favoring bulk railcars. Polyethylene (PE) prices held steady and remain up an average of two cents so far in January. Polypropylene (PP) prices gave back half of their earlier January gains, as monomer prices eased a bit, but they are still up $0.015/lb for the month. The flat-to-down pricing came after a…

Perstorp has introduced a sustainable innovation in PVC plasticizing that features 100% renewable carbon content and an 80% reduction in carbon footprint relative to its fossil-based equivalent. Pevalen Pro 100 advances non-phthalate plasticizers and sets a new benchmark in flexible PVC, the company said, by applying chemical and physical traceability and factoring in biogenic CO2 uptake from renewable raw materials. The new grade of Pevalen is a drop-in replacement that…

The Krones Group reports on its website that it is close to signing an agreement for the purchase of 100% of Netstal Maschinen AG from plastics processing machinery company KraussMaffei. Switzerland-based Netstal is a leading supplier of injection molding machines to the beverage market (PET preforms and caps) as well as to the medical and thin-wall packaging markets. The company has been a strategic partner of Krones, a packaging and…

Airbus is strengthening its presence in Germany with the opening of a ZEROe Development Centre (ZEDC) for hydrogen technologies at its Stade site. The center will accelerate the development of composite hydrogen-system technologies for storing and distributing cryogenic liquid hydrogen. A priority for the ZEDC is the development of cost-competitive, lightweight hydrogen systems (e.g., cryogenic hydrogen tanks) in composites. The technology development will cover product and industrial capabilities from elementary…

The 2024 edition of the JEC Composites Innovation Awards has kicked off with the naming of three finalists per category. The awards ceremony will take place in Paris on Feb. 8, 2024. Here we profile the successful entries in the Aerospace Process category. Aspera welded thermoplastic composite demonstrator Company: Spirit AeroSystems (USA) Partners: A&P Technology (USA), Concordia Fibers (USA), Electroimpact (USA), Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials (USA), NIAR (USA), Victrex (USA)…

Approximately half of new technologies fail to reach the market, and the actual number is probably higher, according to Leyla Mirmomen, founder and CEO of Optimuos, a client-based engineering company headquartered in Los Angeles. From insufficient integration of customer needs into a specific technology and regulatory complications to prolonged and intricate development processes, most market failures stem from roadblocks that are inherent to conventional approaches. Traditional development methods tend to…

FDA’s 21 CFR Part 820 — Quality System Regulation (QSR) has not been updated since it was first released in 1996 . . . until now. Are you ready? FDA proposed aligning its regulations with ISO 13485: 2016, the international quality management system standard, in February 2022. Some time this year, the agency will update and release its QSR requirements, and the medical device manufacturing supply chain will need to…

Japan’s DIC Corp. has developed a plateable polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) compound, in collaboration with Japanese firms Tsukada Riken Industry Co. Ltd. and Yoshino Denka Kogyo Inc. Using the newly developed DIC.PPS MP-6060 Black compound in combination with plating technologies will enable the mass production of electroless and electro-plated PPS on existing plastic-plating production lines without the need for a special etching process, according to DIC. Plateable PPS enables the use…