Thermoforming

Using machinery supplier by Italy’s OMV, German processor Bartling GmbH is thermoforming and inmold labeling PP food containers in what is one of the first commercial IML thermoformed projects. Bartling is a family-owned processor of food packaging with more than 250 employees.

Though the firm’s Managing Director, Karl Schäuble, hesitates to take a guess as to Illig’s market share, he does note that its 750 employees remain an anomaly in a segment of the industry where most of its competitors have 100 employees or less. The largest manufacturer of thermoforming machinery, Illig (Heilbronn, Germany) took time this week for an open house to which some 250 processors from around the world attended.

Our extensive post-NPE2009 coverage continues here in this web exclusive. Visit "NPE Central" at our Plastics Today site for the coverage from our September issue.

New from GN Thermoforming Equipment (Chester, NS) is the GN DX series of thermoformers, a new line of servo-driven machines now available in two sizes. The GN 3021 DX comes with a forming area of 30 by 21 inches (762 by 533 mm), and the larger GN 3625 DX offers a forming area of 36 by 25 inches (914 by 635mm).

Frankfurt—In what the Tier One supplier says is a world novelty, it is thermoforming 3D instrument cluster panels for BMW using a black sheet it developed that allows warning lights and other displays to brightly shine through it, with no sign of distortion and no need for a secondary anti-reflective coating. The parts also show no sign of polarization at their sharp edges.
 

Although often the unsung heroes in a plastics processor’s compound recipe, additives’ pace of development is as swift or swifter than in any other corner of the industry. The benefits of these, too, are as far-reaching as with any other development: Improved mechanical properties, weight savings, energy savings, and improved efficiency are just some of the benefits additives can bring to a processor’s game.

BLOWING AGENTS
Lightweighting aids in energy, cost cutting
Foaming agent specialist KibbeChem launched a liquid blowing agent, LiquidLite, during the recent NPE show. It offers an alternative to powdered or pellet products that may create dust on the shop floor. According to company VP Shannon Rice, LiquidLite produces similar performance to powder or pellet materials but helps cost since 20% less of the material can be used to achieve a similar effect.

Plastics packaging processor Anchor Packaging Inc. (St. Louis, MO) has introduced a crisp foods container to its range of Culinary Classics takeout packaging, with the new containers, thermoformed of polypropylene (PP), designed to best polystyrene (PS) in the market for takeout fried foods.

New from additives and masterbatch supplier Gabriel-Chemie (Gumpoldskirchen, Austria) and due to be launched at next month’s Fakuma tradeshow is the company’s Maxithen Biol range of color and additive masterbatches based on polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable polyester derived from plant starch.

The Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE; Newton, CT) is seeking papers for its inaugural EUROTEC conference—a technical conference it’s billing as the European counterpart to North America’s ANTEC. SPE EUROTEC, which will take place Oct.