Compounding

The drive to reduce medical costs in the United States is triggering more patient care in their homes, where costs are lower and there are reduced risks to acquire potentially deadly infections, such as MRSA and other penicillin-resistant bacteria.

A new "smart catheter" senses the start of an infection and automatically releases an anti-bacterial substance. It is being tested at the University of Michigan in an effort to stop catheter-related blood and urinary tract infections.

Dipankar Koley, the principal researcher on the project, said the technology can be applied to catheters inserted into blood vessels and the urinary tract.

NatureWorks is targeting ABS replacement in PC/ABS in major durable applications including automotive interiors and business machines.

"The standard grade of ABS is a straight drop in for ABS in existing tooling," said Frank Diodato, business director, durables, at NatureWorks, in an interview. The cost is about $1/lb, comparable to ABS in most areas of the world.

Last week at PlasticsToday we wrote that Addivant (Middlebury, CT), the former antioxidant and UV stabilizer business of Chemtura, is "looking to shake up the polymer additives sector." This week, with the announcement of the commercialization of two new biobased polymer modifiers, it became clear that they weren't planning to waste any time before doing so.

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (Tokyo) has acquired the PVC compounding business of Comtrex, LLC (Warren, MI). This is the second such move made by the company following its offer to purchase the compounding business of the Tessenderlo Group (Brussels, Belgium).

In a sign of the times, two different papers at ANTEC last month explored the potential of improving manufacturing processes for plastic scaffolds used in tissue engineering—the synthetic production of new human organs.

One paper looked at use of injection molding microcellular foam, or MuCell, and the other looked at thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) because of its value in producing highly porous scaffolds with interconnected structures.

A five-year slump in glass fiber pricing may soon be coming to an end. The industry built up global capacity just in advance of the Great Recession that began in 2008. As a result, prices dropped and have failed to match gains made in thermoset resins or competing materials such as steel and aluminum.

Sporting a new name but offering an old pedigree, Addivant (Middlebury, CT), the former antioxidant and UV stabilizer business of Chemtura, is looking to shake up the polymer additives sector.

Custom compounder and resin suppler A. Schulman Inc. (Akron, OH) has opened a new plastics masterbatch manufacturing facility in Vadodara, Gujarat, India to supply India's growing flexible packaging, appliance, and consumer products markets.

Polymer nanoparticles that are drawn to cancer cells could become an important detection tool, according to a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society.