Electrical/electronics

The initial application for the industry's first cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) elastomer is expected to debut soon in an extruded medical application.

The newly developed material targets plastics such as nylon and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in medical applications including tubing and bags. The benefits of the COC elastomer for film are toughness, purity and moisture barrier.

The Val Tech Group (Rochester, NY), which has been expanding its cleanroom space, is partnering with SelectConnect Technologies (Palatine, IL)  to produce three-dimensional molded interconnect device (3D-MID) components.

Shell Chemicals (London) is moving forward in its efforts to commercialize a new process for the polycarbonate feedstock. The company has decided to invest in a 500-tonnes/year demonstration unit to manufacture the chemical intermediate diphenyl carbonate (DPC).

The unit will be located at Shell's chemical plant in Singapore's petrochemical hub on Jurong Island. It will manufacture sufficient volumes of DPC via a proprietary process to supply selected customers in the polycarbonate industry for their evaluation and acceptance.

Evonik Industries (Essen, Germany) plans to expand capacities for the specialty polymer polyamide 12. First, the company is significantly expanding its existing plant in Marl, Germany; second, the executive board has approved preliminary and basic planning for a large new polyamide 12 production facility in Asia. The location in Asia has not yet been identified but Evonik does already operate an acrylic plant in Shanghai, China.

The U.S. Agriculture Department is funding a five-year project to develop electroactive polymers from natural, renewable feedstocks such as cornstarch.

BASF will build a new Ultrason polyethersulfone (PESU) plant at the company's site in Yeosu, Korea, part of €2.3 billion in investment in Asia Pacific that the company is planning from 2011 to 2015.

It's no stretch to say energy harvesting (EH) technologies, which convert small amounts of energy from their nearby surroundings or environment into electricity, are "renewable." Piezoelectric, thermoelectric, photovoltaic (PV), and electromagnetic technologies are examples that can be used to help devices gain energy from vibrations in moving objects, regions with temperature differences, or areas with light or magnetic fields.

The last quarter of 2011 has seen phase-two expansion of Evonik's PMMA plant in Shanghai completed and put online, thereby doubling the supplier's regional manufacturing capacity for molding compounds made of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) to around 40,000 tonnes per annum.

This latest expansion of the PMMA plant also makes accommodations for growing demand in Europe as it helps to better secure supply availability of Plexiglas molding compounds for customers outside of Asia.

Lens molding was taken to a new dimension of precision at the recent IPF Show in Japan by Fanuc (At the Foot of Mt. Fuji, Japan) with its Roboshot S-2000i30B press molding 3-mm-diameter lenses for smartphones from cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) resin. Nowadays, smartphones require up to eight such lenses.

Long a proponent of "No hydraulic!," Niigata Machine Techno (Niigata, Japan) had a mission at IPF: to prove just what is possible with all-electric injection molding machines.

Long holding pressure not an issue with latest Niigata dithering technology.