Extrusion-Film & Sheet

Extrusion lines with fully integrated quality control systems can now be set up by an operator with an iPhone outside of a clean room.

The new technology will be on display at NPE2012 at the Boston Mathews (Norwood, NJ) booth in the West Hall, number 5862.

Plastic replaces metal in a device that applies dental fillings, making it lighter and easier to handle.

The working parts of the DinoPress applicator, which are subject to heavy mechanical stress, are now made from polyetheretherketone (PEEK) from Evonik Industries. The device can be steam sterilized up to 134°C.

The new DinoPress has been developed jointly by Gossau, Switzerland-based Alfred Schmid AG, producers of plastic parts for the dental industry for more than 40 years, and Basel, Switzerland-based Dolder AG.

A new gauge illustrates the increasing precision of medical processing in the United States.

Direct Flow Medical (Santa Rosa, CA) is now using an OptiGauge to design and perfect advanced catheter and balloon products for a minimally invasive implant used to treat patients with heart valve disease.

The market for solar installations based on copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film panels will nearly double in size to $2.35 billion in 2015, as manufacturers signaled a breakout year in 2011 by taking advantage of falling production costs, improving module conversion efficiencies and increasing adoption in commercial rooftops. This according to a Lux Research (Boston, MA) report titled Sorting through the Maze of CIGS Technologies: Who Will Cash in on the Breakout Year?.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI)  has got the thumbs up from shipping classification society Det Norske Veritas (DNV; Singapore) for a large container ship fueled not by heavy oil, but environmentally friendlier liquid natural gas (LNG), with plastics playing a key role in containment of the fuel.

Vehicle interior systems supplier Faurecia (Nanterre, France) and Korea's LG Hausys (Seoul), a world leader in the development and production of specialty decoration materials and films for the housing, electronic and automotive industries, have signed a strategic partnership to jointly develop next-generation vehicle interior decoration films.

Winners in the fast-growing and changing medical plastics market will be technology specialists. New quality, cost and regulatory demands are rapidly upping the ante for processors who want to participate.

In that spirit, here are a few areas of specialization coupled with upcoming educational opportunities.

Extrusion systems supplier Davis-Standard LLC (Pawcatuck, CT) was sold by private equity firm Hamilton Robinson and Davis-Standard management shareholders to ONCAP, the mid-market private equity platform of Toronto-based investment firm Onex. The deal, which closed on Dec. 23, 2011, was announced to the market on Jan. 4, 2012 and ends Hamilton Robinson's involvement with Davis-Standard.

Aircraft manufacturers now have a new polymer choice for use in thermal acoustic insulation blanket (TAIB) cover film as an alternative to more costly PEEK (polyetheretherketone) and Tedlar polyvinyl fluoride (PVF), which has been in short supply.

Plastic film featuring three different functional layers is being used as a new packaging concept by BASF for a pharmaceutical excipient called Kollidon, which is made of polyvinylpyrrolidone. (PVP).

Referred to as PeroXeal, the new multi-layered and heat-sealed plastic film will protect Kollidon against contact with oxygen, making it possible to significantly reduce the peroxide level of the material, according to BASF.