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There's no doubt that a variety of plastic and non-plastic materials will play key roles in vehicle lightweighting moving forward. The consequence of this trends is that various material combinations will need to somehow be bonded together and adhesives are set to play a large part in this.

Lubrizol (Cleveland, OH) continues to broadly expand its specialty thermoplastic polyurethane compounds for the medical market.

One of its announcements at MD&M East in Philadelphia today was an all-new proprietary flame-retardant designed to accelerate the replacement of rubber in wire and cable insulation used in hospitals.

São Paulo—When you're compounding 240,000 tonnes of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) per year small variations in the packaging phase can have big implications for the bottom line. That's the issue Brazil's Karina faced with its 25 kg bags of PVC compounds and masterbatch, which are produced and packaged at its facility in Guarulhos in the state of São Paulo.

NGR (Next Generation Recyclingmaschinen GmbH; Feldkirchen) announced it has acquired BRITAS Recycling Anlagen GmbH. NGR plans to operate BRITAS as a subsidiary.

BRITAS is a manufacturer and developer of filtration systems for heavily contaminated plastic melt streams. The automatic screen changers are especially well suited for filtration of post-consumer plastics waste and are used for high output rates, according to a news release.

Philadelphia—Materials technology is advancing rapidly for demanding medical plastics applications, such as catheters.

At MD&M East today in Philadelphia, specialty compounder Foster Corp. (Putnam, CT), unveiled ProPell thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and polyether block amide (PEBA) compounds for improved manufacturing and handling of medical catheters.  Foster said that the new compounds dramatically reduce tackiness and friction in soft, flexible polymers while maintaining other physical properties of the unmodified polymers.

Growing demand for engineered  bags coupled with a major expansion will fuel sales growth of 18% to 22% this year at Genesis Plastics Welding (Fortville, IN), CEO Tom Ryder said in an interview today at MD&M East in Philadelphia.

The company, which has a proprietary technology to RF weld olefin medical plastics, recently added a third Class 7 medical cleanroom in response to growing demand for single-use and easy-to-sterilize medical devices. Genesis is a contract manufacturer of specialized plastic bags. The company's employment has grown from 48 in 2009 to 87 today.

Invista (Wichita, KS) has signed an exclusive, long-term agreement with Petrochemical Conversion Company Ltd. (PCC; Jubail, Saudi Arabia) to purchase and market polyamide 66 engineering resin manufactured at PCC's new world-scale PA 66 plant in Al-Jubail. The new facility-expected to start up in late 2013 or early 2014-will produce up to 50,000 tonnes/year of polyamide 66.

São Paulo—Vemax, a Brazilian supplier of specialty winding technology, is looking to open its first office outside of Brazil in the U.S. later this year, hoping to reinvigorate an export business that formerly constituted 70% of sales.

Since purchasing Gauge-Rite Inc. in September of 2011, Unique Tool & Gauge Inc., a mold manufacturer located in Windsor, ON has seen substantial growth in Gauge-Rite’s business. According to Darcy King, VP of Sales and Engineering for Unique Tool (www.unique-tool.com), taking on a new business is always a challenge – even if that business is complementary to the moldmaking business.

São Paulo—The Brazilian printing and inspection market is growing in size and technological clout, with local suppliers offering increasingly high-tech equipment. Altec, which began 30 years ago in the paper market, now sells web tension controllers, film inspection, and vision systems into a variety of spaces, including plastics.