Something is just beginning to happen. It’s momentous, but like a lot of big things, it won’t appear significant right away, unless you know what to look for. I remember March 17, 2022, very well. I came home and said to my spouse, “It’s started.” That was the day the federal reserve raised the federal funds rate by 0.25%, up to 0.5%. Not a big deal it seemed at the…
Editor’s note: Longtime PlasticsToday columnist Clare Goldsberry wrote this article in 2018. It has since been updated. Clare retired in 2021. Can you believe that at one time plastic was too fantastic for its own good? It seems that so much effort went into promoting plastic as the “material of a thousand uses” that expectations were running high that it would soon become a plastic world. Numerous articles in the popular…
A three-material molding system from Plasdan will demonstrate the production of complex assemblies with two add-on injection units and in-mold robotics at NPE2024. Plasdan’s equipment will be integrated with a Nissei NEX360V-100LE all-electric molding machine to function in a single cycle — without the need for multiple machines or manual assembly. The setup reduces machine time, labor and energy requirements, and uses less floor space. “Efficiency gains and productivity improvements” “This…
A combination of a rotary table injection molding machine and automated parts handling will be operating at the Arburg stand at Chinaplas. The turnkey system will be molding complex fluid distributors for an automotive application made from 35% glass-fiber-reinforced polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), each containing three different metal inserts. The production cell is based on the 200-tonne Allrounder 1600 T with an integrated upstream stamping unit and conveyor system. Parts handling…
I guess you could call it a gimmick, but Brandon Birchmeier is sticking with his beloved whiteboard. The 20-year veteran of the injection molding industry, and now head of a consultancy serving plastics processors, started a YouTube channel a few months ago. In the Injection Molding — The Whiteboard Sessions videos, Birchmeier addresses the latest technologies and trends from a processor’s perspective, illustrating his concepts on a whiteboard, of course.…
Sustainable practices slowly but surely are coming to the medical space. A proof-of-concept pilot project in the dialysis department at a major hospital in Belgium reportedly has shown that non-contaminated medical plastic waste can be converted to pyrolysis oil in an advanced recycling process to produce circular feedstock. In turn, the feedstock can be used to produce plastics that achieve the same levels of performance, purity, and physiological safety as…
Bpacks, a start-up operating in Europe and the United Kingdom, has developed a compostable bark-based material that integrates seamlessly with plastic-package manufacturing lines. The company’s technology enables production of bark-based pellets and sheets for use as a substitute for plastic. Bpacks can produce the bark-based material as well as finished rigid packaging at its 300-m2/3,230-sq-ft R&D center in Belgrade, Serbia. The production process for the material closely resembles that of…
March is an unpredictable month meteorologically for much of the country, with wearisome winter weather hanging on against the encroaching spring. From a plastics perspective, the last four weeks saw a notable amount of top-performing content rooted in contentious concerns. Problems included layoffs, questionable business practices by C-level managers, potentially constraining legislation, and more. Not all is doom and gloom. As with the gradual changeover to spring, March’s content also…
Wirthwein New Bern Corp. will lay off approximately 50 workers starting in May from a total workforce of 120 positions, according to a notification under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Based in New Bern, NC, Wirthwein is part of Germany’s Wirthwein Group, which provides injection molding, extrusion, and other plastics processing services to a range of industries. The New Bern location molds plastic parts for dishwashers, Samsung…
Covestro has completed its first industrial-scale polycarbonate (PC) copolymers plant at its site in Antwerp, Belgium. The new platform technology, which Covestro developed, is based on an innovative, solvent-free melt process in combination with a new reactor concept. This marks the start of commercial availability of PC with adjustable properties that has been developed and tested on a laboratory and pilot scale in recent years. The investment is in the…