Thermoforming

A nucleating agent has helped push homopolymer polypropylene (PP) into thermoformed packaging applications with the promise of better haze and less yellowing compared to conventional nucleated PP homopolymers.

Two new members of BASF's biodegradable plastics family have been introduced: a thermoformable version for food trays and the first injection-molding grade for complex and high quality packaging, including thin-wall applications.

TEQ Thermoform Engineered Quality is installing four Kiefel thermoforming machines, including two lines in a second ISO 8 level (Class 100,000) cleanroom at its headquarters plant in Huntley, IL, 50 miles northwest of Chicago.

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).

Long known as a "fragmented" segment of the industrial supplier market, the plastics industry's—in particular processors and mold manufacturers—recent M&A activity is signaling that the industry is ripe for consolidation.

Companies spend a lot of money in hard assets such as buildings, machinery and equipment and software. But when it comes to financing non-capital assets such as marketing, sales, and people, they aren’t as willing to make those other investments needed to optimize the so-called soft assets.

Microstructured plastic inner lenses enable even illumination and design freedom in rear tail lamps, while reducing the number of LEDs required and part complexity in lamp. The first such inner lens thermoformed from polycarbonate (PC) has debuted in the 2013 Buick Enclave.

An all-olefin full instrument panel using contour stitching won the grand award in the Society of Plastics Engineer's annual automotive innovation awards competition. Winners were announced last night at a banquet in Livonia, MI.

Disruptive technology is always on the horizon and that is particularly true in the packaging market, where brand owners are always on the look-out for new materials, new package designs, and new technologies to enable both. One technology that has been tried by thermoforming companies in the past, but never really got traction because of its complexity, is “contour printing"—also known as pre-print or distortion printing.

At the recent IMLCON produced by AWA Alexander Watson Associates, I gave a keynote address that looked at what it will take to mainstream in-mold labeling into packaging applications. In addition to some of the often mentioned obstacles to this technology in North America such as lack of IML label suppliers and the large number of SKUs that brand owners carry, the long and complex supply chain seems to be a big hurdle for adoption of IML.