Materials

New Orleans—A record number of attendees and exhibitors helped substantiate the enthusiastic statements regarding the plastics recycling sector delivered by the leaders of three prominent industry associations at the recent Plastics Recycling Conference (March 19-20; Sheraton New Orleans; New Orleans, LA).

The late 1980s and 1990s represented a major transition period for medical plastics. Major resin producers were scared off by litigation issues following failures of silicone implants. At the same time, markets such as catheters were just emerging and needed development partners.

A new generation of entrepreneurs emerged to fill the gap.

DSM opened its first application development technical center for engineering plastics in Japan at the end of March Yokohama Business Park in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture. The launch of the DSM Engineering Plastics Japan Technical Center is in line with DSM's strategy to support and grow business not only with customers in Japan but also with overseas Japanese transplants, for which material specifications are determined in Japan.

Oxford Performance Materials (OPM), which has been developing polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) as a medical implant plastic, has received FDA 510(k) clearance for its OsteoFab Patient Specific Cranial Device (OPSCD).

"OsteoFab" implants are made from PEKK with additive manufacturing technology. According to OPM, it is the first approval for an additively manufactured polymer implant.

For electric vehicles (EVs), one of the dominant needs today is to reduce vehicle weight, which enables either an extended driving range or a smaller battery to be employed. To help Nissan address this challenge, Sabic's Innovative Plastics (Pittsfield, MA) business supplied lightweight Noryl resin, an unfilled, polyphenylene ether (PPE) and polystyrene (PS),  for the terminal cover and spacer of the battery system on the automaker's new 2013 Leaf.

A newly approved ASTM standard is expected to advance the use of metal injection molding (MIM) as a manufacturing method for medical implants.

ASTM F2989 is a new international specification that covers unalloyed titanium components that are used for surgical implants. It was developed by Subcommittee F04.12 on Metallurgical Materials, part of ASTM International Committee F04 on Medical and Surgical Materials and Devices.

Owens Corning (Toledo, OH), in its role as a leading global producer of glass fiber reinforcements for composite systems, has joined a strategic alliance with BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany) and TenCate Advanced Composites (Nijverdal, The Netherlands) with the goal being to develop optimal solutions in thermoplastic composites for automotive mass production.

The global market for engineering plastics will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 5% from 2012-2020 and hit 29.1 million tonnes by 2020. The market was estimated at 19.6 million tonnes in 2012, with a projected value of $67 billion in 2013 and a forecast market of $72.5 billion in 2014, according to a new report from Research and Markets Ltd.

Cologne, Germany—One of the most respected institutes working in the field of sustainability and the biobased economy, nova-Institute, will this year be organizing its International Conference on Industrial Biotechnology and Bio-based Plastics & Composites for the sixth time and releasing surprising results from a comprehensive study of the bioplastics industry.

Specialized elastomeric compounds continue to penetrate applications that improve quality of potable water supplies.

EMME GI PLAST (Miasino, Italy) is using a range of thermoplastics elastomers (TPEs) that are specially formulated by Kraiburg (Waldkraiburg, Germany) for use in drinking water to maintain its pure taste and remove pathogens.