Plastics Engineering E-Magazine May 2019 Issue

MAY 2019

Catch the Wave Resins Made from Recycled Ocean Plastics Can Help Heal the Planet

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CONTENTS VOLUME 75

NUMBER 5

MAY 2019

SPME

6

Focus on: Bill Arendt At ANTEC® 2019 President Brian Grady awarded Bill Arendt, SPE’s President’s Cup.

ANTEC® Report

8

Making Motor City Memories: ANTEC® 2019 Spotlights Business and Academia

By Sheri Kasprzak, Editor-in-Chief Plastics’ best and brightest gather once a year to talk tricks of the trade and new advancements and processes at SPE’s technical conference ANTEC®.

8 Debbie Mielewski, senior technology leader of sustainable materials and advanced materials at Ford Motor Co.

ANTEC® Women’s Panel

12

Women’s Panel at ANTEC® Offers Advice, Inspiration

By Robert Grace Diverse women share valuable insights about challenges, careers and success.

Design Notes

16

12 Patricia Miller, Sonita Lontoh, Eve Vitale, and Mercedes Landazuri held the attention of a full ballroom of ANTEC attendees at the 3rd Women’s Networking Panel in Detroit.

Stunning 3D-Printed Pavilion Weathers Time, Nature’s Wrath and Overseas Travel

By Robert Grace Created by SHoP Architects for the Design Miami fair, a soaring pavilion made with custom ABS and bambooreinforced PLA has found a new home in Kenya.

16 Techmer PM developed the carbon fiberreinforced ABS used for Branch Technology to apply via its patented, free-form Cellular Fabrication 3D printing process.

Cover Story

24

Ocean Plastics: Ripe for New Thinking?

By Jim Romeo How we think, design, fabricate, and use plastic products may influence how they are reused and help thwart the worrisome growth of ocean plastics pollution.

About the cover: Resins like these are made from recycled ocean plastics, one way to help solve the problem of plastics pollution in the world’s oceans. Courtesy of Shutterstock

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CONTENTS VOLUME 75

NUMBER 5

MAY 2019

Quick-Change Tools

30 30 ENTEK’s QC3 twin-screw extruders let operators to change screws in five minutes or less—a changeout that typically takes 30 minutes to two hours to accomplish.

Presto, Change-O!

By Geoff Giordano How we think, design, fabricate, and use plastic products may influence how they are reused and help thwart the worrisome growth of ocean plastics pollution.

Plastics for Life

34

SPE Announces its 6th Annual Plastics for Life™ Competition Winners SPE awarded its Plastics for LifeTM awards to plastic products that meet the ultimate test of value by improving our lives.

Departments

36 34 SPE Plastics for LifeTM award winners at ANTEC® 2019 conference in Detroit.

Industry News In this issue’s roundup of industry news, we explore developments from Budweiser, Chevron, MFG Chemical, and more.

46

Patents

50

Events

37 Budweiser creates football pitch from recycled plastic cups.

Our regular roundup of notable patents.

By Dr. Roger Corneliussen

52

Market Place

54

Editorial Index

56

Advertiser Index

SPE and Partnered Conferences, SPE Meetings, Non-SPE Events and Webinars

Correction In last month’s issue of Plastics Engineering we ran a list of the 2019-2020 SPE Executive Board.

Unfortunately, we failed to list Dr. Raymond Pearson, the Vice President of Technology & Education. We apologize for this error. Dr. Pearson can be reached at rpearson@4spe.org. Please help us welcome him to the 2019-2020 SPE Executive Board!

Vice President/ Technology & Education

RAYMOND PEARSON

Lehigh University Email: rpearson@4spe.org

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3

Editorial & Publishing Staff Sheri Kasprzak Editor-in-Chief (201) 748-8713 skasprzak@wiley.com

Valaree DonFrancesco Designer (203) 740-5425 vdonfrancesco@4spe.org

Ryan Foster Art Director (203) 740-5410 rfoster@4spe.org

Contributing Editors

Roland Espinosa Senior Account Manager Print & E-Media Advertising (201) 748-6891 respinosa@wiley.com Lisa Dionne Lento Publisher ldionnelen@wiley.com Sue Wojnicki Director of Communications (203) 740-5420 swojnicki@4spe.org

sp e OWNED BY A MINI SCHNAUZER, CHEMICAL ENGINEER... AND MY FAVORITE SPE BENEFIT IS...

THE TPO CONFERENCE!

Robert Grace bob@rcgrace.com

“I get to work with many accomplished plastics professionals!”

Geoff Giordano geoffgio@verizon.net Patrick Toensmeier toensmeier@sbcglobal.net Dr. Roger Corneliussen Patents cornelrd@bee.net

LAURA SHEREDA SENIOR POLYMER SCIENTIST

Matt Bechtel Industry News bechtel.matt@gmail.com

SPE 2019-2020 Executive Board President Brian Landes CEO Patrick Farrey President-Elect Jaime Gómez Vice President – Business & Finance Jeremy Dworshak Vice President – Divisions Jason Lyons Vice President – Events Bruce Mulholland

Vice President – Marketing & Communications Conor Carlin Vice President – Sections Scott Eastman Vice President – Young Professionals Lynzie Nebel Vice President – Technology & Education Raymond Pearson Past-President Brian Grady

Want to connect with people like Laura? Join SPE! No matter where you work in the plastics industry value chain-a scientist, engineer, technical personnel or a senior executive-joining SPE can help you succeed.

VISIT 4SPE.ORG TO JOIN TODAY!

4 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

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“THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT I LEARN A LOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY I AM INVOLVED WITH BUT ALSO BEING INVOLVED AS A LEADER PROPELLED ME FORWARD IN MY CAREER TOO. NO DOUBT.”

Each year, the SPE President honors an individual who has provided outstanding and meritorious service to SPE. At ANTEC® 2019 President Brian Grady awarded Bill Arendt, SPE’s President’s Cup.

MEMBER SINCE 1977

I actually did not join the SPE for 5 years. After attending Vinyltec, Chicago meetings and ANTECs I decided I needed to belong to the SPE. Joining SPE has allowed me to expand my knowledge and gain acquaintances and friends through its extensive network.

I have worked in the industry for more than 50 years. I am now a consultant to several industries. My experience includes starting at the bottom of the technical ladder to the top including directing research. I designed many new products and have been involved with multiple technologies.

WHY THE PLASTICS INDUSTRY AS A CAREER CHOICE?

I am a chemist by background. This education set the stage for my career development.

As with most things and people I was not quite sure what my correct path should be. I started as a paint formulator at Desoto. I liked formulating. So, then I formulated ink at a different company. I joined a plasticizer supplier and I knew working with those raw materials were a life direction. Plasticizers go into numerous applications.

FAVORITE SPE MEMORY

There are many. I enjoy being involved with governance of the organization. I had several rolls. At Section, Division and as a Vice President of the SPE. But being elected first as an honored service member was outstanding then as a Fellow was amazing.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU TO BE AN SPE VOLUNTEER?

There is no doubt that I learn a lot about the technology I am involved with but also being involved as a leader propelled me forward in my career too. No doubt.

ONE THING YOU’D LIKE PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT YOU?

I really am a scientist and that is important but I also want to say that I care about people. My friends and family are a focus for me.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLASTICS PRODUCT?

Well I know PVC and that is a favorite. But there many other plastics and applications I really enjoy too.

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MENTOR, FAMILY MAN, CHEMIST...

sp e BILL ARENDT member since 1977

ANTEC® REPORT

Making Motor City Memories: ANTEC® 2019 Spotlights Business and Academia Plastics’ best and brightest gather once a year to talk tricks of the trade and new advancements and processes at SPE’s technical conference ANTEC®.

By Sheri Kasprzak, Editor-in-Chief

A

NTEC® 2019, held at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, offered a mixture of technical presentations and business networking opportunities––including dinner, drinks, and bowling at Detroit’s Punch Bowl Social and mingling during BrewFest.

Panel topics included new material innovations, processing solutions, and sustainability. SPE honored women in the field with a women’s luncheon (see page 12 for more).

Industries represented ranged from medical to industrial and beyond, including plenty of academic presentations.

Designing Parts with Plastics One of the broader panels at ANTEC tackled designing parts with plastics, led by Mark T. MacLean-Blevins, author of Designing Successful Products with Plastics: Fundamentals of Plastic Part Design.

“Why use plastics?” MacLean-Blevins asked the crowd.

Its physical properties, he noted, allow for a wide range of uses, including films, tubing, and other product parts.

Plastics are also cost-effective.

There are four pillars of plastic design, he said.

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“Materials, design, tooling, and processing.”

For each application, the proper type of plastic must be selected. This will have an impact on the tooling design, as well as the processing of the product. The initial selection can come down to a family or couple of families of plastics with the specific selection saved for later in the design process.

The processing of the product is dependent upon the tooling cost and the design complexity, as well as the materials used.

“Design provides structure or geometry and features of the part, created to functional features of the part,” MacLean-Blevins said. “The forming process and complex tooling tie in to all those pillars.”

Once you know you want to make a part with plastics, how do you go about finding a family of materials? MacLeanBlevins suggested a material database, which stores information on about 5,000 or so different materials.

“There’s a tremendous amount of information, compiled under specific conditions and laboratory settings,” he said. “You can look at and compare them … Once you have a family class picked out, go to the manufacturer and say, ‘Give me numbers for this material, specifications’.”

Material processing depends upon the material class chosen. There are low- and high-pressure processes, and most of these require tooling or a mold of some type. Those processing types include low-pressure ones like thermoforming and high-pressure ones like stretch

blow molding. Additive manufacturing is a no-pressure process in which material is layered.

“Injection molding is the high-pressure granddaddy of all plastics processes,” MacLean-Blevins said. “Squeeze and squirt. Squeeze happens at a pretty high pressure.

Squirt happens at 20,000 psi, so tooling has to be strong enough to resist 20,000 to 25,000 psi pressure.”

The caveat to injection molding, he noted, is the cost.

Tooling is an area a lot of people ignore. They typically only think about how the part is going to operate. It’s as important as material selection or processing. It can, however, get expensive depending upon the complexity, features, and detail of the final product.

Sustainability Matters Panels on sustainability were a big hit at ANTEC®. Among them was a talk from an Iowa State University PhD candidate on heat-treated bamboo for polymer blends.

This fiber is made partially of recycled materials, including those made by the carpet industry. Reportedly 1.9 million tons of carpet are discarded annually, but only 8 percent of this is recycled.

Bamboo, the Iowa State upperclassman reported, is lighter than traditional glass- or talc-filled composites, but it’s thermally unstable compared to glass composites.

Translation? They burn.

In an effort to temper these fibers, the grad student put three different pieces in the oven for three hours at

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9

ANTEC® REPORT

three different temperatures to improve the mechanical properties. The student used PA6 and PP, PA6 and PP, and PA6, PP, and PPgMA as unfilled controls in the experiment. All of the materials were oven-treated for three hours, stirred every 30 minutes, and were tested at 160º, 180º, and 200º C. These materials were extruded twice, and on the second extrusion, there was a lot of smoke in the carpet fiber-filled bamboo with slight degradation.

Untreated bamboo saw slight improvement between 160º and 180º with the heat treatment making the material more crystalline.

Ocean Plastics Connected to the topic of sustainability is the problem of ocean plastics. Tony Andrady, adjunct professor of biology and marine biology at the University of North Carolina, told the crowd that plastics waste in the ocean is one to two times the weight of the Pyramids of Giza.

The world’s oceans had accumulated 8 to 12 million tons of plastic waste as of 2017.

Of 160 countries studied, waste production drops as GDP rises. Countries with a higher GDP manage their waste better, he added.

“Mismanaged plastic waste is a huge problem in Asia

and in Brazil,” he said. “In Asia, there’s going to be a hot spot of plastic waste, and specifically a hot spot of microplastic waste.”

Microplastic waste, he added, is a particularly dangerous issue. As plastics break down in the ocean, from friction or through natural interaction with the environment, tiny particles are released. Sea creatures consume these tiny particles. Humans then consume the sea creatures, leading to health problems. Colorants, stabilizers, and other chemicals used in plastics can cause serious damage to fish and other marine life, even in small amounts.

A huge part of the ocean plastics problem is packaging plastics.

“Some of them float, so they’re transient,” he said.

“Therefore, counts of floating plastics are serious underestimates.”

Agricultural Plastics Agriculture might not be the first thing you think of when you think of plastics, but Meg Sobkowicz, plastics engineering associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and her team have been experimenting with them.

10 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

“Bioplastics are used extensively in agriculture already,” she said. “We have a whole field of plasticulture. They prevent weeds.”

But these materials have to be removed after use because they can be dangerous to consumers. As such, scientists must ask themselves how fast a chemical will degrade and if it’s good for the environment.

structural lightweighting, rolling resistance in tires, and coatings that last forever.

“For smart interior applications, nano is one answer for creating state-of-the-art interior fabrics and cockpits,” she said. “Coatings last and are shiny and crack-free forever.”

Among the agricultural uses for plastics are polymers used in soil for water management, films used in greenhouses, polymer coatings used for fertilizers, and more.

“We’re looking at design variables for polymers in the agricultural space,” Sobkowicz said. “We’re looking at geometry, thin film or a thick product with surface volume, depending upon the type of fertilizer. There’s not just one or two but many chemicals used for delivering nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous in a given delivery device.”

Sobkowicz and her team are researching a release profile to get nutrients into the soil under a wide range of variable, including drought, floods, and changing moisture levels.

“We’re looking at climate change and biological activity in soil, and deciding can we design a product to give us the best conditions in the environment we’re working with,” she noted. “Nitrogen created a boon for the growth of food, but we don’t want nitrogen leaching into the air and causing pollution, or leaching into the water.”

Nanotechnology and Graphene Perhaps one of the more intriguing panels was one on nanotechnology and graphene in the plastics sector.

Dr. Lisa Friedersdorf, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, led the panel, which included Debbie Mielewski, senior technology leader of sustainable materials and advanced materials at Ford Motor Co.; Terrance Barkan of the Graphene Council; and Philip Rose, chief executive officer of XG Sciences.

The goals of the coordination office, Friedersdorf said, are world-class research, commercialization of nanotechnology, infrastructure, and responsible development.

“We’re fostering technological development pathways, sharing stories and best practices, taking research into the market, looking at challenges based in things like scale-up, quality control, tools to measures these aspects along the pathway, workshops, webinars, and a series of podcasts. We want to help the community learn from each other and advance commercialization.”

Graphene can be used in a wide range of auto components, Mielewski said, including phones, automotive headlines, wear reduction in the powertrain,

Debbie Mielewski, senior technology leader of sustainable materials and advanced materials at Ford Motor Co.

Under the hood, nano can lead to better lubricity, longer time between maintenance, better heat properties, and less wear.

“We tried putting graphene into plastic resins with little success until a high school student intern put it into a foam,” she added. “It was the perfect application for engine covers. It isolates noise from passenger compartments.”

This technology has been integrated into Fords F-150, F-250, Expedition, and Explorer brands successfully.

“We’ve identified 35 vertical industries in which graphene can be applied,” said Barkan.

A lot of those are for battery technology, he noted.

“Some people have called us the Tinder of graphene,” he joked. “We connect people to suppliers or application providers.”

Next Up, San Antonio Detroit played a gracious and fun host to ANTEC® 2019.

And during the festivities, SPE announced it will be taking its technology conference on the road to San Antonio in 2020.

I was thoroughly impressed with the presentations, the camaraderie, and the networking opportunities ANTEC® had to offer. So grab your cowboy hat and join me in San Antonio next year!

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11

ANTEC® WOMEN’S PANEL

Women’s Panel at ANTEC® Offers Advice, Inspiration Diverse women share valuable insights about challenges, careers and success

By Robert Grace

I

t’s not easy being green, Kermit the Frog famously said. And neither is it easy being a woman in a maledominated industry such as plastics manufacturing.

Inc., and is vice president at sister company Indace Inc., speaks seven languages, is a singer and jazz musician, and in 2017 was named a Plastics News “Rising Star.”

But there are growing numbers of women who are succeeding in bursting through the Lexan ceiling—and a ballroom full of (both male and female) attendees to the third Women’s Networking Panel at the recent ANTEC® conference in Detroit got a hefty dose of inspiration and practical career advice during that March 19 lunchtime gathering.

Lontoh is a Silicon Valley technology executive of Indonesian heritage with a bachelor’s degree from University of California at Berkeley, an MBA in marketing and strategy from Northwestern University, and a master’s degree in engineering, supply chain and logistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She left her VP post at Siemens in April 2018 to join HP in her current role.

Mercedes Landazuri, who helped to launch this women’s session at ANTEC® three years ago, moderated the discussion, which featured three panelists representing a diverse cross section of backgrounds and career paths. They included:

Vitale earned her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Oakland University near Detroit, worked in the automotive industry (at Saturn Corp. during its preproduction days), took 18 years off from the workforce to raise a family, and earned her master’s degree in engineering and manufacturing engineering from Kettering University in 2013. She currently works as an engineering consultant for the plastics industry in manufacturing and sustainability, and has overseen SPE’s nonprofit foundation for about three years.

I was more interested in what can be done than in how it has been done before.

»» Sonita Lontoh, global head and vice president of marketing for 3D print and digital manufacturing at HP Inc.; »» Eve Vitale, chief executive of the SPE Foundation; and »» Patricia Miller, chief executive officer and owner of Illinois injection molder Matrix 4 Inc. Landazuri, meanwhile—who manages operations and customer relations at Skokie, Ill.-based Apex Colors

Miller, 36, has dual bachelor’s degrees from the University of Iowa, in marketing and entrepreneurship, and in journalism and mass communications. She also has a master’s degree in public policy from UCL, the

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L-R: Patricia Miller of Matrix 4, Sonita Lontoh of HP Inc., Eve Vitale of the SPE Foundation, and Mercedes Landazuri of Apex Colors held the attention of a full ballroom of ANTEC attendees at the 3rd Women’s Networking Panel in Detroit. Courtesy of SPE

University College London. After working as a state senate political aide in Hawaii in 2007, she worked the next seven years in marketing roles for a pair of pharmaceutical and biotech firms, including Eli Lilly & Co. in Indianapolis.

In July 2014, Miller’s career took a sharp turn into manufacturing, as she agreed to take over and relaunch the shuttered injection molding plant her grandfather operated in Woodstock, Ill. The factory had been dark for three years, she told attendees, and Miller now refers to her company—Matrix 4 Inc.—as a five year-old startup with a 40-year history.

Charting a Career Path Lontoh cautioned young attendees against necessarily pursuing the popular advice of “follow your passion.”

It’s more complicated than that, she suggested. You need to also ask yourself, “What are you good at? What does the world need?” Simply doing what you love does not always lead to success.

Having started in politics and then working for big pharma, Miller suggested that her outsider’s perspective was helpful in her case. “Coming from outside the plastics industry,” she recounted, “I was more interested in what can be done than in how it has been done

before,” and that set her on a path to completely remake the mission of her grandad’s old company.

Vitale said there is not so much a gender gap in industry as a gap related to what she called a “childraising penalty.” Sari Kerr, an economist at Wellesley College, assisted on a pair of May 2017 studies that showed that college-educated women make about 90 percent as much as men at age 25, but only about 55 percent as much at age 45. Kerr’s research found that “between ages 25 and 45, the gender pay gap for college graduates, which starts close to zero, widens by 55 percentage points. For those without college degrees, it widens by 28 percentage points.”

Women who take off time to raise a family, the studies showed, have a difficult time getting back anywhere close to pay parity with men once they return to the workforce.

Lontoh volunteered that she has chosen not to have children and that she has benefited in her career by having a very supportive husband of 20 years. “Work/ life balance is a misnomer,” she said, “as it implies you can always have a balance. You can’t—sometimes it’s 70/30 or 60/40, and you have to make choices.” She refers instead to “work/life blending,” and stresses the

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13

ANTEC® WOMEN’S PANEL

need to meaningful experiences with both.

“You have only one life,” the never-married Miller added, “and work is part of it.”

“I look young, and sound as if I’m five,” she quipped.

But if you know your stuff, then you can garner respect and get things done. And she has got a lot done while transforming Matrix 4 as “a design and manufacturing house making meaningful products in plastics.”

In its 70,000 square feet of space, the firm now has a 40 percent female workforce, 25 injection molding presses (ranging from 75 to 1,050 tons in clamping force), and a full-service tool room. Miller has added 3D printing to the repertoire, and she recently hired her first fulltime industrial designer from a top design firm in San Francisco. Matrix 4 has been named an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company two years in a row (leaping more than 3,000 spots from 2017 to No. 1,056 last year), and a 2018 McHenry County Top Workplace.

Dealing with Inequality Landazuri asked the panelists about their experiences with bias in the workplace. Lontoh said she recently led a team of HP executives to Europe, and some customers automatically assumed one her male colleagues was the most senior person in the HP delegation. That gets tricky, she noted, because it can be awkward to step forward and say, excuse me, but I’m the boss here.

“They didn’t mean to be discriminatory,” she said, but it’s just one example of inherent biases that are baked into the consciousness of so many.

Vitale recalled that despite being the valedictorian of her high school class, she was not encouraged to take physics; her teachers instead urged her to take typing and shorthand.

And Miller pointed out that it’s not only men who can act inappropriately. As a young, single woman who had moved into Indianapolis years ago for a new job, she said her female manager felt compelled to try to set her up on dates by putting her on work teams with available young men.

SPE Leading on a Key Issue In this age of the #MeToo movement, Vitale took the occasion to announce a new initiative by SPE. The group is partnering with more than 53 other leading societies to form the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine). The consortium will address sexual and gender-based issues to ensure that all individuals

may work in STEMM industries in a safe and welcoming environment.

Vitale said members of the consortium will collaborate in the development of shared resources, which will be made available to all their collective members. These will include professional and ethical conduct policies and procedures to combat issues of harassment.

In a statement issued that day, SPE Chief Executive Officer Patrick Farrey said: “Harassment and discrimination, in any form or for any reason, undermine the core principles of ethics, equality and diversity. By joining forces with other leading STEMM-focused societies, SPE will serve as a change-agent toward removing the barriers to inclusion from the plastics industry.”

Farrey stressed that SPE is an inclusive society of plastics professionals who work throughout the plastics industry value chain—scientists, engineers, technical personnel, and senior executives across the spectrum of education, gender, culture, and age.

“SPE is taking this seriously,” Vitale said, “and we’ll be enjoying the benefits over the next few years.”

Asked for closing comments, the panelists offered up some sage advice for those in attendance.

“We need to give ourselves a little more self-compassion,” Miller said, “and realize we might not be able to get everything done.”

Vitale said she has found young men eager and willing to have a female mentor—and it can be rewarding for all involved.

“You need to set the right expectations with your boss,” Lontoh advised. “Have some guiding principles and have mentors and sponsors (both male and female). Life is a journey—have fun, be confident, and enjoy!”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robert Grace is a writer, editor and marketing communications professional who has been active in B2B journalism since 1980. He was founding editor of and worked for 25 years at Plastics News, serving as editorial director, associate publisher and conference director.

He was managing editor of Plastics Engineering from July 2016 through October 2017, and is now both editor of SPE’s Journal of Blow Molding and directing content strategy for SPE. He runs his own firm, RC Grace LLC, in Daytona Beach, FL., and can be contacted at bob@rcgrace.com.

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DESIGN NOTES

Stunning 3D-Printed Pavilion Weathers Time, Nature’s Wrath and Overseas Travel Created by SHoP Architects for the Design Miami fair, a soaring pavilion made with custom ABS and bamboo-reinforced PLA has found a new home in Kenya

By Robert Grace

I

n this age of heightened environmental sustainability, plastics sometimes get rough treatment by the public and in the media. So it is heartening to hear a story of reuse and renewal such as this one, which begins in New York, Chattanooga and Miami and has made a stop, for now, in Nairobi, Kenya, of all places.

After the Design Miami global forum awarded its annual Design Visionary Award in 2016 to SHoP Architects (www.shoparc.com), the New York-based architectural firm earned the opportunity to create an installation to serve as the gateway to that year’s Design Miami fair.

The hosts wanted a creative, eye-catching yet functional pavilion that would welcome attendees, provide seating and counter space, and also hold, for example, 1,000 champagne flutes, according to Rebecca Caillouet, project manager and senior associate at SHoP. SHoP—known for its use of next-generation fabrication and delivery techniques and imaginative programmatic concepts—proved to be a good choice. SHoP co-founder Gregg Pasquarelli said at the time: “We use technology as a way to take traditional materials and experimental materials and use them in a new way that people are inspired.”

SHoP leveraged its contacts at Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (www.ornl.gov)—part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE)—and also ended up partnering for the first time with Chattanooga-based 3D printing specialists Branch Technology (www.branch. technology). Down the road in Clinton, Tenn., polymer compounder Techmer PM had worked with both ORNL

and Branch for some time, and was brought in to design the materials needed to produce both of the project’s large, free-form, 3D-printed “nesting” canopies, as well as its solid seating and countertops.

Using curvilinear geometry, SHoP applied Branch’s novel Cellular Fabrication (C-Fab™) 3D printing technology to produce the curved canopies using a Kuka robot, nicknamed Rudy, that ran on a 38-foot track. For those parts, they used a carbon fiberreinforced ABS resin that Techmer had custom made for Branch to use in its additive manufacturing process.

Oak Ridge, meanwhile, had the idea to use naturally grown bamboo as a reinforcing fiber in a bio-based resin for the project’s solid seating and raised bar. Bamboo is a woody grass that can grow at the astonishing rate of up the three feet per 24 hours.

It was up to Techmer to SHoP Senior Associate Rebecca Caillouet come up with oversaw the project.

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a compound that would work— and they had just a matter of weeks to do so, recalls Alan Franc, the firm’s product development manager.

“This was a new feedstock and supply chain, and a new, developmental raw material, to be made in a new production process,” he said—and SHoP needed 10,000 pounds of the compound ready within a few weeks. ORNL sourced the bamboo and provided it to Techmer, which developed a bio-based polylactic acid (PLA) base resin to use with it.

“Within a four-week time frame, we worked through challenges related to the PLA and bamboo fibers and successfully formulated materials that met the installation’s structural and extended outdoor durability needs.”

Techmer PM developed the carbon fiber-reinforced ABS used in these pavilions specifically for Branch Technology to apply via its patented, free-form Cellular Fabrication 3D printing process.

They weren’t sure at first if the material needed to meet flame-retardant specifications, so Techmer worked concurrently for a while on developing both FR- and non-FR versions, until it was determined that these parts did not need to meet those specs. Both the base resin and the reinforcing material are made from totally

Branch Technology Using Free-Form 3D Printing to Modernize Construction Speaking recently at ANTEC® 2019 in Detroit, architect Platt Boyd shared his vision of the future of construction—and it is highly digital, enhances productivity, and slashes waste.

Since that March 21 presentation, Boyd has pulled back the curtain a bit more and revealed that his firm, Branch Technology Inc., has just opened what he calls “America’s first commercial, large-scale, 3D printing ‘factory of the future’ for construction” in Chattanooga, Tenn.

In August 2014 Boyd, Branch’s founder and CEO, recruited a small group of architects and engineers to help him launch the company.

Their collective vision was “to

renewable sources, and compound is also biodegradable and designed for high-speed printing.

ORNL, meanwhile, used a Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) machine from Cincinnati Inc. to 3D print the PLA components in DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration

liberate design” using a production process they had developed called Cellular Fabrication™.

This C-Fab process—which uses a patented extrusion head attached to a Kuka Robotics arm—combines industrial robotics, sophisticated algorithms, and mostly carbon composite materials to free-form print open-cell structures to enable a new, more sustainable way to build.

It is distinctive, Boyd says, in that it prints volumes as cellular matrices.

Celebrating C-Fab The open-cell nature “allows for efficient builds and endless dimensional form,” he says. The process is capable of generating components that are 8 feet wide by 12 feet high by 30 feet long. Each component can be attached to the next, allowing even larger builds and continuous forms of unprecedented

Using curvilinear geometry, SHoP Architects applied Branch’s Cellular Fabrication (C-Fab™) 3D printing technology to produce the canopies using a Kuka robot that ran on a 38-foot track. All photos courtesy of Branch Technology

scale. For architectural application, the matrix acts as a formwork or scaffold to accept traditional building materials.

Branch claims the process is 80 percent more efficient than traditional construction methods,

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DESIGN NOTES

This rendering of Branch’s 3D-printed house on the Chattanooga State College campus is aptly dubbed Curve Appeal. (left) The one-bedroom, one-bath house features a 1,200 square-foot open floor plan, and an additional 2,000 square feet of outdoor space for a patio and carport. Branch plans to finish printing it by the end of May. (right)

while offering an extremely high strength-to-weight ratio.

The company has done a number of high-profile projects, to include: »» Winning a NASA competition for designing a 3D-printed habitat for use on Mars; »» Making the Design Miami pavilion, part of which has just been relocated and installed on a United Nations site in Nairobi, Kenya (see main story); »» Creating a very large, outdoor band shell in Nashville, Tenn.; »» Printing an indoor hanging garden installation at Chicago’s Field Museum.

Branch also is currently in the midst of building what it calls “the world’s first free-form, 3D-printed house,” on the campus of Chattanooga State College. As of mid-April, the house was about 78 percent printed, and should be completed by the end of May, according to Melody Rees, Branch’s lead design and project manager.

Curve Appeal This house project, dubbed Curve Appeal, was born from the Freeform Home Design Challenge that Branch created to push the building envelope. Back in 2016,

it received 1,333 entries from 97 countries, and then shared the top 50 submissions for online voting. A five-person judging panel selected the ultimate winner—the Curve Appeal design submitted

by Chicago-based WATG Urban Architecture Studio.

Branch committed to building the single-story, one-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a 1,200-square-foot open floor plan on the local college campus. The structure covers a total of about 3,200 square feet, including an outdoor patio area and car port.

“Typical construction methods are constraining,” notes Boyd. “Custom complex form is prohibitively expensive and often inconceivable to manufacture. With C-Fab, cost-effective design freedom is democratized for all.”

Construction’s Productivity Crisis Such advances are important to a massive industry that lags seriously behind other sectors when it comes automation and productivity, according to data from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI).

As for modernizing its production methods, the consulting giant reports, “much of construction has evolved at a glacial pace.

Take one example: construction is among the least digitized sectors in the world, according to MGI’s digitization index. In the United States, construction comes second to last, and in Europe it is in last position on the index.”

Poor construction productivity costs the global economy a staggering $1.6 trillion a year, McKinsey estimated in its February 2017 report called “Reinventing Construction: A Route to Higher Productivity.”

Examples of innovative firms and regions suggest that acting in seven areas simultaneously could boost construction productivity by 50 to 60 percent, according to the study. Some of these areas include rethinking design and engineering processes; improving procurement and supply-chain management; improving on-site execution; and infusing digital technology, new materials, and advanced automation.

Branch checks all those boxes.

A ‘Factory of the Future’ So, the firm now is introducing a new, modular factory concept in Chattanooga. The 40,000-squarefoot facility—which by mid-April was due to house 12 of the world’s largest free-form printers—is meant to be a prototype for a factory of the future that can

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One needs to walk through the canopy structures to fully appreciate their scope and scale. (left) The elegance and grandeur of the pavilions’ design becomes apparent when viewed from above.

Facility on the Oak Ridge site.

SHoP said that Oak Ridge’s use of this technology to make these solid PLA parts “celebrated a biodegradable bamboo medium.”

footprint, and are biodegradable at the end of their useful life.”

These recyclable PLA products, which are used on pelletfed additive manufacturing equipment, are said to be well-suited for single- and limited-use products, as well as packaging and promotional items.

The PLA parts had one-third of the embodied energy and an order of magnitude lower carbon footprint compared to the carbon-fiber-reinforced resin systems normally used in large-scale additive manufacturing.

Branch’s patented C-Fab technology builds in redundant strength and makes the resulting parts very strong and durable.

“Using bamboo fiber as a composite material offers several advantages over traditional, petroleum-based additive manufacturing materials,” according to Soydan Ozcan, senior R&D scientist at ORNL. “Biomaterials require less energy to produce, have a lower carbon

Additionally, global engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti analyzed the two autonomous canopies— dubbed Flotsam & Jetsam—to modify the angles of the struts to improve the overall performance and stress resistance. The resulting structures were considered

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DESIGN NOTES

at the time to be among the largest 3D-printed objects ever produced, occupying some 1,600 cubic feet of volume. Standing about 14 feet high when fully assembled, the structure’s largest single parts measured roughly 25 feet long by 6 feet wide by 8 feet high. (See project video: https://vimeo.com/214207883.)

This rendering of the interior of the Curve Appeal house dramatically illustrates the design freedom that can be unleashed with free-form 3D printing.

be transported and set up on or near a building site, according to Rees.

Currently capable of producing 500 pounds of product per week—which is a lot in the context of 3D printing—it is planning to scale up from 12 to 32 robots, she said in a recent phone interview.

The plant features a clean, quiet, day-lit, design-oriented environment and at the moment Branch is exclusively using custom compounds made by Clinton, Tenn.based Techmer PM. Branch primarily prints with carbonfiber-reinforced ABS, which is ideal for extra-durable applications, Rees says, but it also uses unspecified type of unreinforced, bio-based resin. Bio-resins are welcome in the building trades due to them being derived from renewable resources and also being virtually free from offgassing of unwanted volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Branch’s custom-designed, bio-based material is compounded with additives to ensure it meets fire-code regulations for interior housing applications.

As for their Techmer PM compounding partner, Rees says, “They’re really good and have been very generous in helping us to formulate new materials specific to our process. They’re helping with the R&D side of developing these materials and that’s propelled us to keep using them.” She adds that Branch is working with Techmer now to develop at least three more polymers specifically for architectural applications.

Meantime, business is good for Branch Technology. “We’ve had to turn away customers because we don’t have enough robot time,” she notes. The addition of more robots and manufacturing assets in Chattanooga is not only providing a glimpse of what future construction trends may hold, Rees says, but will also provide the firm with significantly more production capacity, to allow it to accommodate the large number of requests it has for new jobs.

The maximum part size, recalled Caillouet in a recent phone interview, was limited by the dimensions of the door on Branch’s previous facility. (Branch last summer moved into a much larger facility midway between Chattanooga’s downtown innovation district where the venture began and Chattanooga State Community College where it is currently building an entirely 3D-printed house, called Curve Appeal.)

The two-acre landscape of experimentation for Design Miami was inspired, SHoP says, “in equal parts by the city’s celebrated spirit of play and its less well-known role as an emerging technology hub.”

Once the 2016 fair ended, SHoP disassembled Flotsam & Jetsam, moved it across town and reinstalled it in the Miami Design District’s iconic Jungle Plaza to house an outdoor cultural event space for long-term public enjoyment.

The canopy structures—which use braided zip ties to connect the various components—enjoyed a planned, two-year run in Jungle Plaza, where it served as the centerpiece of the district’s weekly farmer’s market and other programmed events that focus on arts and design. During this span, Caillouet said, it successfully endured three major storms, including a very destructive Hurricane Irma, which battered the Florida Keys and generally swamped south Florida.

Meantime, SHoP was continuing a collaboration with the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (bit.ly/Yale_CEA)—a joint academic initiative between the Yale Schools of Architecture and Forestry & Environmental Studies. SHoP founding partner Chris Sharples is a visiting professor at Yale.

It was through this connection that SHoP was invited to send the slightly smaller of its two 3D printed structures to Nairobi to serve as an installation during the first session of the U.N.-Habitat Assembly (https://unhabitat.org/ habitatassembly), to be there held from May 2731, at the headquarters of U.N.-Habitat in Nairobi.

(The U.N. office in Nairobi is one of four major

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Part of the Design Miami installation was disassembled, shipped to Kenya, and set up there to provide a centerpiece for a pair of pending United Nations meetings in Nairobi. (top left) The solid components in the pavilions—to include the seating, bars, and countertops—are made of custom compounded, bamboo-reinforced PLA bioresin. They were 3D printed by Oak Ridge National Labs on one of Cincinnati Inc.’s Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) machines. (top right) The “see-through” parts of the pavilion are tied together using braided zip ties. (left) All photos courtesy of SHoP Architects

United Nations office sites where numerous different UN agencies have a joint presence. Established in 1996, it is the U.N.’s headquarters in Africa.)

for its next uses, Caillouet said. “The other unit is still in Miami, and [the two structures] may be reunited” at a location to be named later.

Manufacturing and assembling Flotsam & Jetsam back in 2016 “felt like a delicate dance at the time,” Caillouet said, noting that 12 trucks were needed to transport all the parts to southern Florida where they were assembled on site. Sending one of the structures via air freight to Africa was another challenge altogether.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of Flotsam and Jetsam tour the world.

SHoP and the team from Yale CEA oversaw the process that involved 13 specially built crates, the largest of which measured 20 by 8 by 8 feet. Although clearing customs in Africa took a while, the shipment itself went well, and Caillouet in mid-March oversaw the reassembly of the transported unit in Nairobi. Set on a grassy green site, profiled against Kenya’s rich blue sky, the painted, rust-colored structure makes a striking visual statement at the UN site, she says.

The installation’s stay in Nairobi will be limited, and SHoP is already planning ahead. “We have other ideas

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robert Grace is a writer, editor and marketing communications professional who has been active in B2B journalism since 1980. He was founding editor of and worked for 25 years at Plastics News, serving as editorial director, associate publisher and conference director. He was managing editor of Plastics Engineering from July 2016 through October 2017, and is now both editor of SPE’s Journal of Blow Molding and directing content strategy for SPE. He runs his own firm, RC Grace LLC, in Daytona Beach, FL., and can be contacted at bob@rcgrace.com.

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19TH ANNUAL

COMPOSITES: Forming the Future of Transportation Worldwide

SEPT 4-6, 2019

CALL FOR PAPERS ATTEND THE WORLD’S LEADING AUTOMOTIVE COMPOSITES FORUM You’re invited to attend the 19th Annual SPE Automotive Composites Conference and Exhibition (ACCE), September 4-6, 2019 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, MI. The show features technical sessions, panel discussions, keynotes, receptions, and exhibits highlighting advances in materials, processes, and equipment for both thermoset and thermoplastic composites in a wide variety of transportation applications.

PRESENT BEFORE A GLOBAL AUDIENCE The SPE ACCE draws over 900 attendees from 15 countries on 5 continents who are interested in learning about the latest composites technologies. Few conferences of any size offer such an engaged, global audience vitally interested in hearing the latest composites advances. Interested in presenting your latest research? Abstracts are due ASAP and papers on June15, 2019 to allow time for peer review. Submit abstracts viawww.SubmitACCEPapers.com.

EXHIBIT / SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES A variety of sponsorship packages are available. Companies interested in showcasing their products and / or services should contact Teri Chouinard of Intuit Group at teri@intuitgroup.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

SPEautomotive.com/acce-conference +1.248.701.8003

49TH ANNUAL

PLASTICS –> Advancing Mobility NOVEMBER 6 2019

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

–> HALL OF FAME AWARD –> MOST INNOVATIVE USE OF PLASTICS AWARDS

The Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE®) is announcing a “Call for Nominations” for its 49th-annual Automotive Innovation Awards Gala, the oldest and largest recognition event in the automotive and plastics industries. This year’s Awards Gala will be held Wednesday, November 6, 2019 at the Burton Manor in Livonia, Mich. Winning part nominations (due by September, 15, 2019) in 10 different categories, and the teams that developed them, will be honored with a Most Innovative Use of Plastics award. A Grand Award will be presented to the winning team from all category award winners.

An application that has been in continuous use for 15 years or more, and has made a significant and lasting contribution to the application of plastics in automotive vehicles, (nominations due by May 31, 2019) will be honored with a Hall of Fame award.

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES This annual event currently draws over 800 OEM engineers, automotive and plastics industry executives, and media. A variety of sponsorship packages - including tables at the banquet, networking receptions, advertising in the program book, signage at the event and more are available. Contact Teri Chouinard of Intuit Group at teri@intuitgroup.com.

For more info and to submit nominations, go to: www.speautomotive.com/innovation-awards-gala.

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INNOVATIVE PART COMPETITION CATEGORIES: • Additive Manufacturing • Aftermarket • Body Exterior • Body Interior • Chassis/Hardware • Environmental • Materials • Process, Assembly & Enabling Technologies • Powertrain • Safety & Hall of Fame

4/10/19 12:24 PM

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29.03.2010 09:21:58

COVER STORY

Ocean Plastics: Ripe for New Thinking?

How we think, design, fabricate, and use plastic products may influence how they are reused and help thwart the worrisome growth of ocean plastics pollution

By Jim Romeo

“Even though concern about marine pollution in general has been expressed since the ‘70s, the issue of plastic debris in the marine environment is a relatively new concern, and sources of hard data are meager. No central data collection source exists to document what types of plastic are out there, where it comes from, what it does, or who controls it.”

That was a statement from a report prepared by the Center for Environmental Education. It was written in 1987, 32 years ago.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory discovered a method to transform discarded products into new, high-value materials of better quality and environmental value. Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy

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The Pervasive Problem of Ocean Plastics

O

cean plastics debris is not a new problem, but it’s a problem the plastics industry is often considered guilty by association of contributing to. However, there’s a strong counter to such association. The plastics industry is a rich source of innovation. Many creative solutions that have advanced society have come from the development of plastics materials and their processing methods. Historically, the plastics industry has been a driver of innovation. That very same spirit of innovation and problem solving may just be the answer to the world’s problem of ocean plastics.

The intellectual horsepower power of the industry can and will be what helps abate the problem of ocean plastics. Today’s plastics engineers will not allow a problem to pervade for another 32 years or more.

“The problem is that the plastic material used in products and in packaging is of so little value right now in the market, that it is not worth the time and energy for us to ensure that these materials are recycled. Because these materials are so low-value, they get tossed in the trash, they get littered or discarded in other ways, and then end up in our environment, in our waterways and eventually in our oceans,” says Josh Prigge, founder and chief executive officer of Sustridge, a Las Vegas-based sustainability consulting firm.

Daniel Chabert, chief executive officer and founder of Gringo Group ApS, in Copenhagen, Denmark, says business leaders can forge a path forward for consumers to take, particularly in our age of Amazon and consumers gaining instant gratification through the convenience of that portal. This may be a segue to a world of plastics made from previously used plastics.

“Leaders need to inspire organizations to take action and start producing this way. There is really no alternative anymore,” Chabert says. “A great example is big giants like Amazon. They demand that all their FBA sellers bag all their products in plastic poly bags. Amazon has the power to change this and allow sellers to use other types of bags that are recycled and not made of virgin plastic. I think Amazon should be leading the way because the impact is enormous and it is [something] we can demand from such a big player.”

Prigge also says explaining the benefits of reducing waste and reducing the impact on the environment is essential. “These practices are not only good for the environment, but the research shows that companies leading on zero waste and sustainability also have lower operating costs, have increased employee engagement, appeal to a younger consumer, mitigate risk against future regulations, and also appeal to more and more investors as the ESG [environment, social, and governance] investing trends continue to grow at a rapid pace,” he says. “Investors are understanding that sustainable companies are outperforming conventional companies, and even the CEO of the largest asset manager in the world, BlackRock, has said that, ‘Within the next five years all investors will look at a

company’s social, environmental, and governance (ESG) performance to determine its worth. The future of smart business is sustainable business, and it is going to be essential for the long-term health and success of any business’.”

Share of Mind?

Prigge believes changing the psychographics of market demand is a smart strategy. The food industry has successfully swayed consumers with terms such as gluten-free, fat-free, high fiber, eco-friendly, and other watchwords. Why not use a similar tack of persuasion to get consumers to be intent on recycled plastics products?

“We also do not have much of a demand in our society for products made from recycled content,” Prigge says.

“We need more consumers to demand products made from recycled content, which will help drive up demand and increase the value of used plastic materials. We also need businesses and facilities to understand the value of zero waste operations. The money that they spend on materials being picked up and sent to the landfill can drastically be reduced by assessing their operations, establishing goals to increase landfill diversion rates, implement comprehensive recycling programs and look to eliminate waste before it’s being created by working with their suppliers to eliminate unnecessary materials and wasteful practices.”

Students at Michigan Tech turned shredded plastic into a snowboard. Courtesy of Michigan Technological University

Other dimensions of the plastics problem go beyond pure technological understandings. We must approach and view waste differently first. A paradigm shift that centers on being creative is the first order of business, before a fitting solution may be developed.

Joshua Pearce, a professor of materials science and engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich., says plastic ends up in oceans not because of carelessness and lack of concern for natural resources, but because businesses and consumers have no economic incentive to prevent it from getting there.

“Recent

technical

developments

in

the

areas

of

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COVER STORY

“We have been working with a 3D printer manufacturer re:3D to directly 3D print from waste. There is a lot of potential from this approach and such fused particle systems have barely begun to be commercialized—so there is a lot of room for growth.”

—Joshua Pearce, professor of materials science and engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Technological University

‘distributed recycling’ and ‘distributed manufacturing’ provide enormous incentives for people to recycle their own waste to make high-value products for themselves,” he says. “This is because waste plastic can be turned into high-value 3D printing filament with a recyclebot, which can be turned into even higher-value products.

It has already been demonstrated with ocean plastic by several groups throughout the world.”

Pearce is also a proponent of prevention. The best way to arrest a problem is to prevent it from occurring in the first place. As he says, waste plastic should never get to the ocean. One step in helping this is to exploit distributed recycling with coding that lends itself to additive manufacturing.

“One of the major impediments for consumers to use this distributed recycling approach is they simply do not know what plastics they are using,” Pearce says.

“China has 140 codes for different polymers. Yet in the U.S. there are only seven, and the most common 3D-printed plastics are grouped in the category seven, ‘other.’ The plastics industry should adopt a more thorough classification system so more plastics can be taken out of the waste stream by consumers and small businesses.”

Prigge also emphasizes prevention—with focus on the design process—as an effective way to prevent plastics from being only for single use. He advocates a materials mindset that incorporates “cradle-to-cradle” rather than cradle-to-grave use of materials that use plastics.

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Plastics should be designed with the intention of their being reused. Waste, if properly embraced, can become a resource.

“I would encourage these companies to learn about the cradle-to-cradle design principles and the circular economy,” Prigge says. “There are huge opportunities to save money, contribute to a more sustainable future and lead your industry on innovation by designing products and materials from recycled content that can be used over and over again. Developing take-back programs for your materials will not only help keep these materials out of the ocean but will also save your company money on new materials and engage and excite customers and other stakeholders around your innovative practices that are designed to protect the environment.”

Miles Pepper, co-founder of FinalStraw in Los Angeles, aligns with this thinking. “Our oceans are facing complete destruction due to our society’s prolific use of single-use plastic. By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by weight,” he says. “We have to shift the way that consumers interact with plastic. Recycling is not the answer. China has just stopped accepting the world’s recycling, thus leaving a lot of countries having to figure out to do with all of this excess material. The solution is that we must switch out single-use with multiuse. Plastic is a fantastic material because it’s so durable, but it’s a terrible material for the environment because it’s so durable. I think we can solve this issue by providing customers with alternative packaging and products that are meant to be used over and over, instead of being thrown away after a single use.”

Using 3D printing technology provides a place for waste plastics to find a home. With proper economic incentive, businesses will retrieve plastics after use and view them as a profit center. Courtesy of Michigan Technological University

Pearce highlights the utility of 3D printing as technology genre where waste plastics can find a home. With proper economic incentive, businesses will retrieve plastics after use and view them as a profit center.

something you do for yourself. Then everyday people will have a direct incentive to help clean up ocean plastic on the beaches as well as to prevent less of their waste from entering the ocean in the first place.”

“We have been working with a 3D printer manufacturer re:3D to directly 3D print from waste,” he explains.

“There is a lot of potential from this approach and such fused particle systems have barely begun to be commercialized—so there is a lot of room for growth.”

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory discovered a method of transforming discarded products into new, high-value materials of better quality and environmental value.

Their research included chemically combined reclaimed polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, in the form of single-use beverage bottles, with bio-based compounds to produce higher-value fiber-reinforced plastics (FRPs) that can be used in products from snowboards to vehicle parts to wind turbines.

While this is only one anecdote, it is at the core of a curriculum necessary to educate others about the opportunity in discarded plastics, waiting to be exploited, that might serve as a feedstock source other product in the age of additive manufacturing.

Pearce cites an example of one of his students who turned a batch of shredded plastic directly into a skateboard deck for his electronic-assisted skateboard.

“This saved him a ton of money and got him a product that was customized for his interests,” he explains.

“I think as these technologies become more popular [3D printing is already taking off and the distributed recycling technology is right behind it], recycling will be

“There is enormous economic opportunity for companies to begin to provide the material ingredients for their products,” he reiterates. “Using existing technology and a modest amount of effort the complete material ingredients list could be made available for all consumers to make better-informed decisions on their purchases.

Such information accessibility would create new business opportunities for upselling products manufactured with superior materials, improve consumer safety, enable consumers to remain consistent with their values, and foster advanced industrial, as well as distributed, recycling.”

Let Us Not Forget the Science Changing the way businesses and consumers think, providing economic incentives, and urging our economy to exploit the opportunity of ocean plastics as materials

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COVER STORY

resource, rather than something that degrades an environmental resource, are all effective. But science is hard at work to find engineered solutions that put science to work in a world where technology is blooming in so many sectors. Here are just a few.

have joined to develop better ways to sort plastics using experimental substances that will help identify compatible plastics, so like-kind plastics may be captured together, avoiding complex sorting, and making them more suitable for recycling.

“Plastic engineers and manufactures need to work collaboratively with their customers to instill core values to prevent excess plastic waste, deriving partnerships to use alternative plastics where applicable including ocean plastics,” says Michael Willard, a packaging engineer with Pack Protocols LLC in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Finding compatibility is aimed at alleviating the burden of sorting plastics for recycling, which adds effort and expense. Plastics, or polymers, are composed of large molecules, so most don’t mix when heated, similar to the interaction between oil and water. Research is focused on finding substances that can ease the mixing of different types of plastics, known as compatibilizers, allowing them to be recycled together. Finding a

Researchers at the University of Houston and IBM

Dow Chemical’s #PullingOurWeight initiative. (below) Dow Chemical’s Plastic Roads project in Texas. (left) Courtesy of Dow Chemical

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compatibilizer that works for all polymers would be ideal. Current technology requires a tailored approach for each plastic mixture.

In addition, the researchers were able to use a catalyst that helps the chemical recycling of plastics products. Chemical recycling involves using a catalyst to break down plastics to produce lower molecular-weight products, a process the researchers say has been hindered by high energy costs. Work to develop more efficient catalysts is underway.

Focusing on the plastics’ molecular structure is helpful in allowing the layering, in which some plastics is sometimes manufactured, to break down more easily; it can be made more flexible while being fabricated. Recently in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Congress, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering received an award for their solution that helps make plastics more flexible in their use. Their researched focused on current packaging layers for food products and drink containers—which are made of several different materials that are responsible for maintaining freshness, blocking UV light, and holding inks for labeling. They are manufactured in layers that can’t be easily separated, and therefore cannot be recycled.

Juice pouches and similar packages are made with bonded layers of metal such as aluminum and different types of plastic, making them almost impossible to recycle. Because only 1 to 3 percent of such packaging is collected for recycling, food and beverage containers are among the top five items found on beaches and coastlines. To solve this problem, the University of Pittsburgh researchers propose manipulating polyethylene molecules to design layers that can each perform a specific function, creating a fully recyclable PE product.

Courtesy of henkel-diagrams.com via University of Pittsburgh

Their solution alters the nanostructure of polyethylene—simple plastic—to mimic the properties of other complex materials (such as PET, EVOH, or even aluminum) in current laminate packaging. Because the basic chemistry of each layer would remain polyethylene, the packaging can then be collected with other plastics and recycled using traditional methods, removing it from the waste stream.

These and others are instrumental and simply can’t be overlooked as efficient tactics. Science creates great things. It can destroy great things, too. But it can also be recultivated to resolve the problems it created.

Ocean plastics is a real problem that is not shrinking.

The debris risks becoming part of the 1987 report we mentioned earlier: It was a new problem, and for more than 30 years we’ve been treating it as a new problem.

It is a problem whose solution, in part, comes from an awakening.

When Innovative Minds Embrace Ocean Plastics Dr. Pearce may have laid out the solution best. In addition to economic incentive coupled with the lure of prosperity of plastics as a viable, new raw material, there should be some fear. Fear is a powerful force that may be the final catalyst that puts ocean plastics where they belong—as a solution, rather than a problem. But fear of regulatory enforcement, or even a loss of profitability, may be a small step in changing the psychology of

ocean plastics as a force to be reconciled, and one that provides opportunity to those who use their innovative minds to embrace them. He says: “The plastics industry should be warned that if they do not show good faith at solving this problem themselves, they are facing at the very least producer responsibility laws that will decrease their profits—or outright plastics bans that would threaten their existence. Doing things like voluntarily providing full information about the materials in their products is a tiny first step in the right direction.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Romeo is a freelance writer based in Chesapeake, VA. For more than 20 years, he has contributed numerous articles to various publications on the topics of logistics, engineering, software and supply-chain management. He earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and an MBA from Columbia Business School at Columbia University. Contact him at freelancewriting@yahoo.com.

www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

29

QUICK-CHANGE TOOLS

Presto, Change-O! Quick-change tools save time on the shop floor

By Geoff Giordano

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aving time on the shop floor is always a top priority.

Recent additions to the processor’s repertoire are dramatically slashing time spent on historically time-consuming tasks.

air wrench, powered by a hose that comes out of the machine.

Expediting Extruder Changes

So far, only the QC3 33 and QC3 43 have the quickchange capability, meeting the demand for small-batch manufacturing. The QC3 33 also features a quick-change multi-piece dye in which the thermocouples and heaters remain on the machine. The machine ships with two plates so one can be removed and cleaned. Fasteners on the guards and covers are quick-turn that meet safety standards but only require a quarter turn.

With its QC3 twin-screw extruders, ENTEK of Lebanon, Ore., has brought game-changing efficiency that allows operators to change screws in five minutes or less—a changeout that typically takes 30 minutes to two hours to accomplish.

With the QC3 43 about four years old and QC3 33 about three years old, ENTEK has gathered an exceptional amount of customer data illustrating the benefits of its quick-change system.

Whether purging resins or changing extruder screws or molds, compounders and converters are reaping the benefits of the latest quick-change tools.

First demonstrated live at NPE 2018 in Orlando, QC3— which stands for Quick Change, Quick Clean, and Quality Control—is based on customer feedback given during development of the QC line. Color compounders, who might switch colors—and screw sets—four or five times a day, were particularly keen on streamlining their operations.

The key to the innovation is a patented coupling alignment that overcomes a traditional hurdle seen particularly in smaller machines with tiny splines that make alignment difficult.

Furthermore, a new lock-and-key design on the screws and shafts facilitates removal by operators and eliminates the need to call in maintenance technicians for every changeover. A remove tooth on the screw makes it impossible to put the unit in the wrong way, and the tools required to switch the extruder screws are mounted on the side of the machine, including the

“The quick-change concept was customer driven,” explains Dean Elliott, ENTEK’s technical processing manager. “We surveyed customers to find out what their biggest struggles were, and it was clear that batch changeovers were limiting uptime.”

The company “focused on a few time-consuming processes and removed as much waste as we could,” he notes, and “we were able to test several iterations of our quick-change couplings and dye, incrementally revise the designs and test them out again” at its onsite pilot plant.

ENTEK recently surveyed several of its Quick Change customers to determine “whether the specific features are adding the value we thought they would.” Of customers surveyed: »» 40 percent reported saving 60 to 90 minutes per changeover

30 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Tools mounted on the side of ENTEK’s QC3 33 and QC3 43 machines facilitate the five-minute changeout of the twin extruder screws. (top) ENTEK’s QC3 twin-screw extruders let operators to change screws in five minutes or less—a changeout that typically takes 30 minutes to two hours to accomplish. (left) Courtesy of ENTEK

»» 20 percent reported saving 30 to 60 minutes »» 40 percent reported saving less than 30 minutes »» More than 90 percent reported value from the system’s features, including mistake-proofing of screw element installation; point-of-use tools; one turn or less fasteners for guarding, shrouds, and cabinets; cleanliness features that include stainless steel, powder-coated paint, and a self-contained base; and oil lube and cooling system gauges consolidated into one location on the exterior of the extruder

A Purge a Packet To speed the removal of resin batches between jobs, iD Additives of La Grange, Ill., recently added two grades to its QuickShots line of single-dose purging packets.

While injection molding is the primary market, “they are also being used in blow molding and extrusion,” says President Nick Sotos. “Due to the simplicity of the

product, it can be used in almost any application, no matter the volume or resin application. There are no machinery restrictions.”

The addition of a pellet version, QuickShots SP, to the portfolio was a response to a need for small-batch cleanouts—for instance, in labs. The company had 1-ounce and 3-ounce liquid versions, which dose at 1 ounce for every inch of screw diameter.

Customers would call and say they have a half-inch screw, Sotos explains, but they would experience slippage when attempting to use the full 1-ounce dose.

“We couldn’t offer a one-ounce liquid,” Sotos says, “so we made the half-ounce pellet version. I sent (that) to a customer, and they said, ‘You should make this in 1-ounce and 3-ounce (versions)’.”

The company also rolled out liquid QuickShots HD (heavy duty), with glass prills for extra cleaning strength.

www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

31

QUICK-CHANGE TOOLS

To speed the removal of resin batches between jobs, iD Additives recently added two grades to its QuickShots line of singledose purging packets. Courtesy of iD Additives

Typically, when somebody is performing a purge, “the guy is going to get a scoop and bucket, get his Gaylord box down, fill his bucket, go to the machine, and start scooping in material.” But QuickShots come “in a box that sits on his bench. He gets a packet out, folds it, and drops it in the hopper. While the other guy is trying to get his bucket, this guy is already purging.”

At a recent Amerimold show, operators who work with molds were keen on the ease of use of QuickShots compared with regular purges. A joint presentation with Coperion at Extrusion 2018 resulted from Coperion’s sampling a box of QuickShots on its twinscrew extruders. Coperion demonstrates the purge’s fast cleanup when demoing its extruders to customers before shipping them.

Using one QuickShots packet with 10 pounds of polypropylene natural 12 melt can also save 60 percent of the costs associated with using 10 pounds of ready-

to-use purge compound and 3 pounds of polypropylene natural 12 melt, Sotos adds. (iD Additives sells both types of purge.)

Now, about two years after iD Additives began a significant push to elevate QuickShots’ market presence, the one-packet solutions are being embraced by injection molders and extruders.

“If you’re doing day-to-day quick color or resin changes, there’s nothing better than QuickShots,” he concludes.

And high-temperature applications are also ideal, as the liquid inside has heat stabilizers good to 710º F. But QuickShots also excel at low temperatures, as the bag it comes in will “go to liquid right away. It’s a very low-melt polyethylene bag, just like those dishwasher pods.”

Quick Mold Changes Illustrating a holistic vision of an Industry 4.0-driven work cell, the Quick Mold Change system Stäubli of

32 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Duncan, S.C., demonstrated at NPE 2018 was the latest in the continued refinement of an automated workflow designed speed up every stage of the mold change process.

Featuring a new table with a control pendant that is easier to integrate into the overall machine system, Stäubli’s evolving QMC equipment continues to push the boundaries of “smart” Industry 4.0 execution of single-minute exchange of die (SMED). SMED, a concept pioneered by Japanese industrial engineer Shigeo Shingo in 1950, aims to reduce changeover times to single digits—less than 10 minutes.

change to under 10 minutes on a 165-ton molder with full automation.

Stäubli’s new mold table with control pendant was designed to be a modular addition to a broader range of injection molding machines and be easier to implement on the shop floor.

“We tried to take a not-so-proprietary approach to the software inside the pendant,” Bradley says. “We tried to have more open communication with the machine because it is so integrated—and everyone’s language can be a little different.”

There are four components to a SMED mold change, according to John Bradley, North American sales manager: barrel purge; mold transport and clamping; ejector tie-ins; and mold services.

“Through the years, we have offered varying versions of all of those components [except the barrel purge],” Bradley says.

Stäubli’s clamping system is also in its third iteration of magnets.

Featuring a new table with a control pendant that is easier to integrate into the overall machine system, Stäubli’s evolving quick mold change equipment continues to push the boundaries of “smart” Industry 4.0 execution of single-minute exchange of die. Courtesy of Stäubli

Mold change is “almost like a pyramid” based on the level of automation. “To get down to the sub 10-minute level, you really need to have automation for loading and clamping the mold, and mold services.”

SMED, Bradley explains, is an analytical process to help manufacturers organize the various facets of changing out a tool. “You can get a long way by being organized.

Equipment comes in to help you stay organized and reduce your time to train new people on mold changeout. You can go anywhere from six hours on a tool change on some 1,500-ton machines. With a little bit of automation, you can get down to 45 minutes; with a lot of automation, you can get down to less than 10 minutes.”

For example, he notes, a major automotive supplier was changing molds between 10 and 12 minutes.

By adding automated mold services—what Stäubli calls multicoupling services—“we got them down to a consistent five to five-and-a-half minutes” when changing molds on 3,500-ton machines making bumpers. On a smaller scale, an electrical connector manufacturer can go from about an hour and 20 minutes per mold

Stäubli’s experience with robotics, sensors, magnetic clamping, rapid connection devices, tool changers, trolleys, and electrical connections enables its QMC system to work quickly and safely within minutes. The company’s one-stop-shop approach to proving the complete suite of injection mold change equipment, outside of mold purge, has been augmented since just before NPE 2018. Using five remote product managers, the company will work with qualified customers to perform onsite SMED analysis.

Automated mold change is often thought of as a significant capital outlay—in automotive applications, for instance. “But it really applies to all levels of molding,” he concludes. “Medical molders in particular are starting to look at some of this technology” with machines ranging from 110 to 500 tons.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Geoff Giordano has been a contributor to Plastics Engineering since 2009, covering a range of topics, including additives, infrastructure, flexible electronics, design software, 3D printing and nanotechnology. He has served as editorin-chief of numerous industry magazines and is founder and chief creative officer of content marketing firm Driven Inbound. He can be reached at geoff@ driveninbound.com.

www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

33

PLASTICS FOR LIFE

SPE Announces its 6th Annual Plastics for Life™ Competition Winners

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PE awarded its Plastics for LifeTM awards to plastic products that meet the ultimate test of value by improving our lives. The awards were given out during the ANTEC® 2019 conference in Detroit.

the competition winner for the SPE 34th Annual Blow Molding Conference in the industrial category.

Held annually, ANTEC® is SPE’s largest event and the world’s leading plastics technical conference.

The grand prize went to the 2019 GMC Sierra LD Thick Light Bar, which incorporates a new high-transparency LED2245 PC used in a thick light bar to allow a sculptured ice appearance. This functional piece meets legal daytime running lamp requirements. The novel light-pipe design incorporates a nonstandard multi-shot thick molding, tooling, and process to provide unique styling and function. Covestro produced the new PC material that offers crystal color development to reduce yellowing often seen in thick PC parts. The part was the competition winner of the 2018 SPE Automotive Division Innovation Awards Gala in the Quality of Life category.

The People’s Choice Award went to Brewcraft’s Genesis 6 Gallon Carboy fermenter. The piece was designed to replace glass carboys, which can break when dropped.

The natural HDPE is see-through and allows for the product to be observed for graduation readings. The part is also embossed with clearly legible graduations in standard and metric volumes. The fermenter was

ThermaPANEL took the Improving Life Quality of Life award. The modular hydronic heat exchange system is used for radiant heating and cooling applications. The patented turbulent flow channel design transfers 250 percent more energy than traditional heat exchange systems with laminar flow properties. Panels are formed and tested to be capable of holding up to 50 psi of pressure at temperatures of up to 145º F. ThermaPANEL was the winner for the 2018 SPE Thermoforming Conference Gold Award for heavy-gauge twin sheet division in the quality of life category.

34 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

was the auto/transportation people’s choice award in the industrial and quality of life categories.

The Protecting Life Award went to the integrated tire carrier, rear camera, and brake light assembly on the 2018 Jeep Wrangler. This hybrid composite technology uses magnesium injection molding for higher structural strength with reduced weight and polymer overmolding for improved impact and corrosion resistance. A 60 percent weight savings is achieved compared to metal stamping and a 20 percent weight savings is achieved compared to die casting processing methods. The system makes it easier for consumers to remove and install spare tires and contributes to noise reduction and impact resistance. The part was the winner of the 2018 SPE Automotive Division Innovation Awards in the sustaining life category.

The Quality of Life Award went to Pickup Tuck, which is a lightweight, portable cargo organization system for pickup truck beds. The product can be installed and removed in a matter of minutes without tools, creating a temporary and secure trunk for the truck. It folds together and can be stored behind the seats after use. The product won the SPE 34th Annual Blow Molding Conference Industrial Division Award in the industrial category and

The Sustaining Life Award went to Simply Orange 89-ounce bottle in clear EBM PET. This bottle is designed using the high-performance PolyclearTM EBM PET 5507.

It’s manufactured by Indorama Ventures in collaboration with Coca-Cola and CKS Packaging. The bottle is 100 percent recyclable, high-impact resistant, and meets OEM requirements for clarity and gloss. It’s also a lightweighted part. It was the winner of the SPE 34th Annual Blowing Molding Conference Packaging Category award in the beverage and sustaining life categories.

www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

35

INDUSTRY NEWS

Dow, Keep America Beautiful Open Fourth Hefty EnergyBag Grant Program

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or the fourth time, Dow is teaming up with national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful® to award up to $125,000 in grants to organizations looking to establish the Hefty® EnergyBag® program in their communities. A collaboration between Dow and Reynolds Consumer Products, the Hefty EnergyBag program diverts hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills and converts the materials into valuable resources. From its inception through March 2019, the program has collected more than 536,700 bags and diverted over 357 tons of hardto-recycle plastics from landfills, the equivalent of producing approximately 1,700 barrels of diesel fuel from collected materials and eliminating approximately 51 full trash trucks.

in developing Hefty EnergyBag programs in their communities and will facilitate planning, implementation, and metrics tracking. Dow also consults with recipients as they manage their local programs and solicit involvement from key community stakeholders.

“The Hefty EnergyBag program is an exciting opportunity that directly supports Keep America Beautiful’s commitment to reducing waste in communities across the country,” says Helen Lowman, president and chief executive officer of Keep America Beautiful.

“We look forward to continuing our relationship with Dow and other organizations that see the value in reducing landfill waste and advancing the collection of hard-to-recycle plastics.”

We look forward to continuing our relationship with Dow and other organizations that see the value in reducing landfill waste and advancing the collection of hard-torecycle plastics.

“We’re pleased to encourage the growth of the Hefty EnergyBag Program, with grant funding in collaboration with Keep America Beautiful, so that we can recover the value of used plastics that can’t currently be recycled,” says Jon Pyper, associate director of sustainability for Dow. “The Omaha-area, Boise-area, and Cobb County programs have already proven that we can successfully and sustainably divert more plastics from landfills and reuse those molecules. We’re eager to continue expanding this program and to encourage improved recycling in communities throughout the country.”

The grant application process is open to municipalities, nonprofits, materials recovery facilities, and other qualifying organizations through July 12, 2019. Dow will equip grant recipients with a framework to aid

Recipients of the third Hefty EnergyBag grant program will be announced in mid-2019, with recipients of the fourth grant program announced in late 2019 after submissions have been fully evaluated. Previous recipients have included communities and organizations in Boise, Idaho, Cobb County, Ga., and Lincoln, Neb. The first permanent Hefty EnergyBag program launched in the Omaha, Neb. area in October 2016.

Dow and Keep America Beautiful will host a one-hour webinar on May 9 to review the application process and describe how the grant applications will be evaluated. To apply for the Hefty EnergyBag grant, visit www.kab.org/ hefty-energy-bag-program.

36 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Budweiser Creates Football Pitch From Recycled Plastic Cups

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udweiser, an official sponsor of the 2018 FIFA World Cup™, has launched a football pitch in Sochi, Russia, created from its recycled plastic cups. More than 50,000 cups collected at arenas and at FIFA Fan Fests after last summer’s tournament have been used to create a new sports facility, appropriately named the Budweiser ReCup Arena.

Over 3.2 million Budweiser Red Light Cups were used during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, many of which fans took home as souvenirs.

Together with the 2018 FIFA World Cup Local Organizing Committee, Budweiser collected and recycled the cups that were disposed and used 50,000 of them to create a wear-resistant colored coating for a new pitch, which measures 65 x 42 meters and is hoped will play host to many tense penalty shootouts in the future.

Local football fans will soon be invited to the first ever match on the red and white pitch—The World Cup REplay. This event furthers Budweiser’s commitment to sustainability,

with the brand recently pledging that every single bottle of beer it brews will be powered with renewable electricity by 2025.

Budweiser has been the official beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup for more than 30 years. The opening of the Budweiser ReCup Arena in Sochi was attended by official guests including FIFA Legend Marco Materazzi, minister of sports of the Krasnodar region Andrei Markov, and marketing director of AB InBev Efes Konstantin Tamirov.

“The FIFA World Cup is a celebration for millions of fans not only in Russia, but around the world,” says Tamirov.

“Throughout the tournament, Budweiser surprised fans with its activations, gave them euphoric emotions, so we decided to create a unique facility–Budweiser ReCup Arena–specifically to extend this experience. Hopefully, this pitch will remind us of the past tournament and, probably, will help someone start a promising football career.”

Arkema Launches First PEKK Production Plant in U.S.

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rkema has successfully started up a Kepstan® PEKK (Poly-Ether-Ketone-Ketone) plant at its site near Mobile, Ala. This investment, which complements the company’s doubling of their Kepstan PEKK resin capacities in France during 2017, aims to support the strong demand for carbon fiber reinforced composites and 3D printing.

Kepstan PEKK resins feature excellent mechanical, chemical, fire, and abrasion resistance. They also accommodate a wide range of processing technologies, particularly in the field of 3D printing, where they are uniquely suited for powder sintering and filament extrusion processes. Launching this new production plant confirms Arkema’s desire to strengthen its offerings of advanced materials in the most demanding markets, such as aeronautics, oil and gas, electronics, and automotive. The new site also confirms the company’s commitment to lightweight materials, which

is one of its six innovation platforms for sustainable development. When replacing metal in structural parts of aircraft, parts made of Kepstan reinforced carbon fiber PEKK will provide lightweight materials with faster production cycles for the aeronautics and defense sectors.

“This new capacity, which has been brought on line on schedule, will enable our customers and their customers to better meet the future demand for ever more efficient materials. We thank our customers, our partners, and the users who have trusted us and very early on selected Kepstan PEKK in their respective markets,” says Christophe André, executive vice president, advanced materials for Arkema.

Located in Axis, Ala., the Arkema site which will produce Kepstan PEKK resins also manufactures plastics additives.

www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

37

INDUSTRY NEWS

Green Science Alliance Develops Biodegradable Plastic Out of Nature-Derived Materials

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reen Science Alliance Co., Ltd has successfully developed a biodegradable plastic that uses plant life as its raw material.

Dr. Ryohei Mori at Green Science was determined to make a biodegradable end product by using 100 percent nature-derived raw materials that was as harmless as possible to the environment, and his persistence paid off. This latest plastic — created with natural components such as wood, waste wood, and bamboo, and without the use of any petroleumbased materials — joins Green Science’s recent offerings of starchbased and recycled-paper-based biodegradable plastics.

While Green Science notes that this new production technology should be able to use all types of plant materials, they are particularly optimistic regarding its

usage of bamboo. Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants in Japan, so much so that Asian regions have had trouble utilizing it; however, its usage in the production of this new plastic could provide a solution for the issue of its rapid growth. Moreover, Green Science already has nano cellulose composite technology in place for use with its various types of plastics (including its biodegradable varieties), allowing the company to increase this new product’s mechanical strength without using any petroleum-origin materials.

Green Science will start small sample production of the new plastic while at the same time improving its properties such as mechanical strength, heat durability, and dimensional stability. In addition, they will attempt to make cutlery with the wood-based material under their Nano Sakura brand.

Richardson Molding, Tulip Molded Plastics Complete Merger

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ichardson Molding, LLC and Tulip Molded Plastics Corp. announced the merger of the two plastic injection molding companies. The new organization has been renamed Tulip Richardson Manufacturing (TRM) and will be led by chief executive officer Craig Kellogg and president Steve Dyer. Owner Resource Group LLC and Saugatuck Capital Company, the majority owners of TRM, will continue to invest in the business and will actively support management’s focus on product development, operational excellence, and increased service levels across the organization.

platform now consists of four facilities, located in Columbus, Ind., Philadelphia, Miss., Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Milwaukee, Wis., with over 135 injection molding presses ranging from 10 tons to 1,500 tons.

This merger enables TRM to leverage the strengths of each organization. Richardson and Tulip are manufacturers of proprietary and custom injection molding products which serve the industrial leadacid battery, automotive, and consumer markets.

Additionally, Tulip also manufactures lead terminals and reprocessed polypropylene. TRM’s manufacturing

“Tulip and Richardson both have a long history of providing outstanding service to their customers and Saugatuck believes this customer service will only be further enhanced as a result of the merger. Our current and new customers will both benefit from the expanded footprint and strengthened capabilities,” says Saugatuck managing partner Stuart Hawley.

“We are excited about our partnership with Tulip and Saugatuck and believe in the long-term growth potential of TRM,” says ORG managing director Brad Esson. “ORG looks forward to supporting the management team’s efforts to integrate the two businesses and realize the full potential of the combined organization.”

38 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

The Travel Corp. Continues to Eliminate Single-Use Plastics from Operations

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rom the beginning of its 2019 operating season, the Travel Corp.’s family of brands (Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold, Costsaver, Brendan Vacations, Contiki, AAT Kings, and Inspiring Journeys) will no longer make single-use plastic bottles available on its coaches.

These brands join sister companies Uniworld, Red Carnation Hotels, and U River Cruises, which have already removed plastic water bottles from their operations. This latest initiative is expected to reduce plastic waste by several hundred thousand plastic bottles per year.

“Our passionate, caring global team is unified in its total commitment to our mission to make travel matter. This means changing a number of ways we’ve operated in the past. This announcement marks an important next step in fulfilling our pledge to eliminate all non-essential singleuse plastics across all our operations by 2022,” says Brett Tollman, chief executive, TTC and founder of The TreadRight Foundation (a not-for-profit joint initiative between the TTC family of brands that encourages sustainable tourism). ”We are working with our partners on the ground to make sure guests still have access to clean drinking water and will be identifying convenient points along the way they can

safely and responsibly source drinking water. We will also be continuing our active efforts to find innovative ways to remove the few remaining single-use plastics throughout our organization’s hotel properties, such as shampoo and body lotion plastic bottles.”

In addition to eliminating single-use plastic water bottles, TTC brands Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold, CostSaver, AAT Kings, and Inspiring Journeys will be eliminating several hundred thousand pieces of singleuse plastics from their operations by ceasing to use non-biodegradable name tags for all guests on their trips. Further, these brands are also replacing single-use plastic luggage tags with reusable, durable luggage tags.

Meanwhile, TTC brand Contiki is trialing a one liter silicon water bottle with a 300 use charcoal filter on a number of its trips this year, providing travelers with a foldable and attractive bottle which ensures clean, safe drinking water at all times. Results from this trial will be shared with other TTC brands, with the long term goal of ensuring all travelers have a refillable water bottle they carry with them at all times, thereby changing their habits and dependency on plastic water bottles.

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www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

39

INDUSTRY NEWS

McMenamins Reduces Waste Through Partnership and Inclusion of Chemical Recycling

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routdale, Ore., resort and concert venue Edgefield McMenamins, waste management company The Broomsmen, and chemical recycling company Agilyx partnered to run a successful recycling program during McMenamins’ 2018 Concert on the Lawn series.

Throughout the 29-show concert series, approximately 90,000 cans and bottles were collected, recycled, and donated to local nonprofits. From 2017 to 2018, there was a 30 percent reduction in per-show landfill waste.

be used in the production of new polystyrene products.

The goals of the program were to divert materials from landfills, keep the venue clean, and educate concert attendees on proper sorting methods in an effort to lower the venue’s waste costs and reduce waste generated throughout the year. Given their ability to be recycled back to their basic chemical building blocks, The Broomsmen worked with McMenamins to source polystyrene foodservice products for use during the concert series. These products, that normally would have become waste, were aggregated and sent to Agilyx, who used its patented process to recycle the polystyrene material back into styrene monomer. Agilyx’s chemical recycling process has a 50 percent to 70 percent lower carbon footprint relative to virgin polystyrene manufacturing, and the monomers it recycled were then sent to polystyrene manufacturers to

“Our partnering with The Broomsmen and McMenamis was a huge success and represents a new emerging approach to recycling of plastic that prevents wasting this material,” says Joe Vaillancourt, Agilyx’s chief executive officer. “We chemically recycled over 2,000 pounds of single-use polystyrene products during this test program.

Single use products are actually not single-use when they are effectively managed in high tech processes.

Our technology can recycle plastics back to their basic molecular components to be used again and again.”

“We would like to thank McMenamins for introducing this initiative to increase community recycling. It shows they are committed to making the planet a better place,” says Phil Torchio, owner and founder of The Broomsmen.

“As an organization, we strive to help our clients achieve their goals of eliminating waste and encourage them to implement these initiatives in their everyday lives.”

“We were thrilled to work with the Broomsmen and Agilyx on reducing waste during our Concert on the Lawn series and look forward to working with them again in the future,” says Scott Lipscomb, environmental coordinator at McMenamins.

40 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Toyoda Gosei Develops Lightweight Plastic Turbo Duct

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oyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. has developed a turbo duct made entirely of plastic, reducing the part’s weight by half while also contributing to an automobile’s environmental performance. The lightweight plastic turbo duct is used in the new HiAce for international markets that the Toyota Motor Corp. launched in February 2019.

Turbo ducts, used to send compressed air to cylinders in order to raise engine output, have conventionally been made of several metal, rubber, and plastic sections to ensure high pressure and heat resistance as well as to absorb engine vibration.

For the new all-plastic turbo duct, Toyoda Gosei adopted a suction blow molding technique capable of forming the long, complex shape to mold the entire duct out of plastic.

Blow molding, used for everyday items such as plastic bottles, is a process in which a hollow center is formed by blowing air into plastic

that has been poured into a mold.

Meanwhile, suction blow molding is a technique that combines blow molding and suction; plastic poured into a mold from above is suctioned from the bottom, and air is blown in to form the hollow center after it has diffused throughout the long cavity. By using this method, Toyoda achieved a total weight reduction of about fifty percent. Moreover, the use of soft plastic for the material and design modifications such as a bellows shape in some sections ensured the duct’s pressure and heat resistance and vibration absorption performance.

Established in 1949 and headquartered in Kiyosu, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, Toyoda Gosei is a specialty manufacturer of rubber and plastic automotive parts. The company includes a network of approximately 100 plants and offices across 18 countries and regions worldwide.

Lightweight plastic turbo duct. Courtesy of Business Wire

C-P Flexible Packaging Purchases Flexo Transparent

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-P Flexible Packaging, a manufacturer of flexible packaging products such as pouches, re-sealable packages, and shrink sleeves, announced it has acquired Flexo Transparent, a custom plastic manufacturing and printing solutions provider. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Flexo Transparent is a terrific strategic fit for our company as we expand across the Northeast and aim to penetrate attractive new end markets,” says Mike Hoffman, president and chief executive officer of C-P. “We look forward to leveraging Flexo Transparent’s innovative manufacturing platform and strong team that routinely delivers quality, service, and package solutions, as we continue to execute on our strategy. I am thrilled to welcome the Flexo employees to the C-P team.”

Based in Buffalo, N.Y., Flexo Transparent employs stateof-the-art cold seal technology to provide its customers flexible plastic packaging products such as rollstock, wicketed bags, pouches, and stretch sleeves. The company will retain its current management.

Flexo president Brian Mabry says, “Since my father took ownership of the company in 1987, we have been providing our customers with outstanding service and

quality packaging. I’m very proud of our team and all that we have accomplished over the years. Flexo Transparent is excited to partner with C-P and we look forward to working with them to expand our capabilities and drive our future growth.”

Founded in 1959, C-P Flexible Packaging serves stable food and consumer end-markets, mainly focused on snacks, baked goods, confections, and household chemicals. It is a long-standing portfolio company of First Atlantic Capital, a New York-based private investment firm.

“We are pleased to continue to support C-P’s expansion as it evolves into a leader in the high-growth flexible packaging sector,” says Roberto Buaron, chairman and chief executive officer of First Atlantic. “The Flexo Transparent acquisition substantially increases the range of products and manufacturing capabilities we bring to the flexible packaging market.”

First Atlantic managing director Emilio S. Pedroni adds, “The acquisition of Flexo Transparent, combined with C-P’s resources, strengthens the value of the company for our customers. C-P’s strong operational focus will further enhance Flexo Transparent’s ability to deliver top quality products.”

www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

41

INDUSTRY NEWS

Huntington Solutions to Acquire RADVA Corp.

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untington Solutions, a provider of custom-engineered expanded polystyrene (EPS) and expanded polypropylene (EPP) molded foam solutions, has agreed to acquire the assets of RADVA Corp., a Virginiabased manufacturer of protective and temperaturesensitive foam packaging solutions for the medical, pharmaceutical, and food industries, among others. The transaction, which is subject to certain approvals and customary closing conditions, is expected to close during the second quarter of 2019.

“We are extremely enthusiastic about the acquisition of RADVA, which will further our reach in the Mid-Atlantic region and bolster our ability to serve customers. RADVA brings a distinct expertise in the cold chain market, providing highly-engineered, temperature-sensitive solutions to its customers,” says Ed Flynn, president of Huntington. “We look forward to welcoming Stephen and his team to the Huntington organization.”

“We are excited to join the Huntington organization, which shares our culture of high quality and customer service along with a commitment to reducing environmental impact,” says Stephen Dickens, president of RADVA. “As

part of Huntington, we will be able to offer our customers a wider range of capabilities and expanded reach and services in different markets.”

In addition to cold chain capabilities, RADVA custom designs and manufactures EPS and Inter-polymers, including ARCEL® for packaging, material handling, and component parts. Founded in 1962, the company supplies both Fortune 500 firms as well as early-stage businesses.

“With the RADVA acquisition, Huntington achieves another important objective of its strategic plan,” says Scott Martin, executive chairman of Huntington. “This transaction exemplifies Huntington’s steadfast focus on making significant investments to benefit our customers.”

Headquartered in Greer, S.C., Huntington Solutions provides custom-engineered shape-molded and fabricated foam made from EPS, EPP, and other advanced resins.

The company’s five production facilities, located in South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, and two in Mexico, specialize in the production and assembly of components utilized in protective packaging, energy absorbing safety materials, and temperature controlled containers.

Westlake Chemical Joins Alliance to End Plastic Waste

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estlake Chemical Corp. announced the company has joined the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), an organization launched in January 2019 to advance solutions to eliminate plastic waste in the environment, particularly in the ocean.

“Westlake is pleased to have joined the Alliance to End Plastic Waste as part of our long-standing commitment to sustainability,” says Albert Chao, president and chief executive officer, Westlake Chemical. “With our core value of being a good corporate citizen, we are committed to being a leader in sustainable practices and a responsible environmental steward.”

AEPW is a not-for-profit organization that partners with the finance community, governments, and civil society, including environmental and economic development

NGOs. It is comprised of nearly 30 companies that have committed more than $1 billion, with the goal of investing $1.5 billion over the next five years, to help end plastic waste in the environment. The Alliance aims to develop, deploy and bring to scale solutions that will minimize and manage plastic waste and promote solutions to keep used plastic out of the environment.

Headquartered in Houston, Westlake Chemical is an international manufacturer and supplier of petrochemicals, polymers, and building products.

The company’s range of products includes ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, chlor-alkali and derivative products, PVC suspension and specialty resins, PVC compounds, and PVC building products such as siding, pipe, fittings and specialty components, windows, fence, deck, and film.

42 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Carbios Granted U.S. Patent for Its PET Recycling Technology

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he United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Carbios a patent on its proprietary process for PET recycling. The patent (U.S. 10,124,512) recognizes Carbios for inventing a method of recycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from a mixture of plastic waste products using enzymes, specifically to depolymerize it into its basic monomers which can then be used in the manufacturing of new plastic products. Filed by Carbios in November 2013, this is the first granted patent in the U.S. applied to this PET plastic recycling method and protects the company’s proprietary innovation through 2033.

“This patent strengthens our competitive position for the recycling of PET, and it is gratifying to have the United States Patent and Trademark Office recognize the innovative nature of our proprietary technology,” says Jean-Claude

Lumaret, chief executive officer of Carbios.

Carbios is a green chemistry company that, since its founding in 2011, has developed two industrialscale biological processes for the breakdown and recycling of polymers. These processes allow for the development of a costefficient circular economy for plastic recycling by eliminating the need for extensive sorting generally required by conventional thermo-mechanical or chemical methods. Beside the acceptance of this patent, Carbios currently holds 98 titles worldwide representing 29 patent families, six of which protect its proprietary method of biorecycling in full and five of which are related to PET degrading enzymes. The U.S. acceptance of Carbios’ patent further confirms the strength of its intellectual property rights and paves the way for the company’s expansion within the North American market.

This patent strengthens our competitive position for the recycling of PET, and it is gratifying to have the United States Patent and Trademark Office recognize the innovative nature of our proprietary technology.

Chevron Phillips Chemical to Participate in Operation Clean Sweep Blue

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hevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC announced it is enhancing its efforts to eliminate plastic pellet spills by becoming a member of Operation Clean Sweep Blue. The program, administered jointly by the American Chemistry Council’s plastics division and the Plastics Industry Association, represents an even more rigorous commitment to pellet loss reduction efforts than Operation Clean Sweep, which the company has been a member of since its inception in 2000. In addition, Chevron announced that it will begin reporting pellet spills that are currently only provided to state regulatory agencies and also report on the success of recycling efforts related to the recovery of spilled pellets via the company’s annual sustainability report (beginning with its 2018 report, to be published later this year).

“Simply put, plastics should not end up in unintended places in our environment,” says Jim Becker, vice president of polymers and sustainability. “We are very proud of our track record and commitment to sustainability programs. We are always seeking ways to

improve our results and joining Operation Clean Sweep Blue is yet another significant step as our company and our industry work to eliminate plastic waste from finding its way into unintended places. We are pleased that the procedures and safeguards we have put into place at all facilities are working effectively to minimize and eliminate pellet spills and are confident that the numbers reported in our sustainability report will confirm the success of these initiatives.”

Chevron Phillips Chemical produces olefins and polyolefins and supplies aromatics, alpha olefins, styrenics, specialty chemicals, plastic piping, and polymer resins via its 31 manufacturing and research facilities across 17 countries. In addition to participating in OCS and OCS Blue, Chevron has recently joined the Alliance to End Plastic Waste as one of its founding members. The growing group of over 30 global companies has pledged more than $1 billion, with a goal of investing $1.5 billion over five years, to eliminate unchecked plastic waste in the environment and especially the oceans.

www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

43

INDUSTRY NEWS

Dana Gibbs Named to Newly Created Position at MFG Chemical

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ana Gibbs, the former president and chief operating officer of Gulf Bayport Chemicals LP, has been named to the newly created position of corporate planning and supply chain manager at MFG Chemical.

“We are very happy to have such a seasoned executive as Dana Gibbs on the MFG Chemical team,” says Keith Arnold, chief executive officer of MFG Chemical and member of the SOCMA board of governors. “He will ensure continuity and efficiency with the supply chain from the Pasadena, Texas plant, which he knows so well having run it for years … and given his executive experience, Dana will also make great contributions in corporate planning.”

MFG Chemical acquired Gulf Bayport Chemicals and its 25-acre chemical manufacturing plant in Pasadena, Texas, in March 2018. Gibbs served for 14 years as president and chief operating officer of Gulf Bayport and was invited to join the MFG team, initially handling the integration of the newly acquired company and plant into its new parent organization. Prior to Gulf Bayport, Gibbs served in

senior executive management positions within the energy industry and before that as audit manager at Arthur Andersen. He graduated from Ohio State with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

“I’m [looking] forward to working with this world-class team at MFG Chemical, increasing our supply chain efficiency, and helping in the planning of MFG Chemical’s future growth,” Gibbs says.

MFG Chemical is a specialty and custom chemical manufacturer for a variety of global markets, including agriculture, asphalt, graphic arts, lubricants, mining, oilfield, paints and coatings, personal care, pulp and paper, and water treatment.

The company is headquartered in Dalton, Ga., and operates four manufacturing facilities in Northwest Georgia and Pasadena, Texas. The company’s key chemistries include amides, dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinates (DOSS), esters, imidazolines, rheology modifiers surfactants, specialty anhydrides, and watersoluble polymers.

AmSty Using Recycled Polystyrene Waste in Styrene Production at Louisiana Facility

A

mericas Styrenics LLC (AmSty), a producer of polystyrene, is now using recycled polystyrene, known as recycled styrene monomer (RSM), as feedstock at its world-scale styrene production facility in St. James, La. This step marks the first time a plastics producer has successfully produced high-purity ASTM styrene from polystyrene waste.

AmSty President and Chief Executive Officer Brad Crocker says he is optimistic about the recycling process and its future applications. “This is yet another successful milestone in our PolyUsable process to ensure no singleuse items made from AmSty polystyrene ever need to be landfilled,” he says.

Headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, AmSty is a member of the American Chemistry Council and its Responsible Care initiative. The company signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture with Agilyx in

November 2018, which is still in process and is expected to be finalized during the second quarter of 2019. In accordance with an offtake agreement between the two companies, the RSM delivered from Agilyx, once processed, goes to an AmSty polystyrene production facility to be converted into polystyrene pellets. These pellets are the building blocks for both solid and foam products used in food service packaging applications, including cups, plates, and take-home containers.

“This is another major milestone for the advancement of the circular economy,” says Joe Vaillancourt, chief executive officer of Agilyx. “Our partnership with AmSty remains a great example of how we can come together to help change the waste and recycling industry to dramatically improve the recyclability of plastics, particularly polystyrene, with a favorable environmental profile.”

44 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

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PATENTS

Our Regular Roundup of Notable Patents

By Roger Corneliussen

Controlling Microstructures U.S. Patent 10,166,571 (Jan. 1, 2019), “Refining Method for Microstructure,” Taewhan Kim, Dongchul Choo and Jungyu Lee (LG Display Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea) It is difficult to manipulate or control micro- or nanostructures on a nano-scale. Large-scale application depends on knowing and controlling these structures.

Kim, Choo, and Lee developed a manufacturing method for controlling these structures by heat treating and removing a coating. The coating solution of polyesters, polycarbonates, polyimides, or acrylics may be applied by standard coating practices. The heat treatment may be generated by an electric current through a heater and the coating, and it can later be removed with a solvent.

Additive Manufacturing Composites U.S. Patent 10,166,752 (Jan. 1, 2019), “Methods for Additively Manufacturing Composite Parts,” Nick S. Evans, Faraon Torres, Ryan G. Ziegler, Samuel F. Harrison, Ciro J. Grijalva, III, and Hayden S. Osborn (The Boeing Co., Chicago) Composites often involve the sequential layering of multiple plies of composite material, with each ply containing unidirectional reinforcement fibers. This laminar structure leads to increased weight and imprecise arrangement of oriented fibers. Evans et al. developed a method of additively manufacturing a composite part by applying a photopolymer resin to a non-resin component while pushing a continuous flexible line through an additive delivery assembly. The continuous flexible line consists of a non-resin component and a photopolymerresin. More photopolymer is deposited along material with curing energy to the continuous flexible line along the moving path.

Disposable Medical Items U.S. Patent 10,172,979 (Jan. 8, 2019), “Disposable Med-

ical Items Made from Bioplastic Resins,” Shantu Patel (Carlsbad, Calif.)

The safe disposal of medical items has become increasingly important in the design and specification process. Patel developed disposable medical items made from bioplastic resins, including polylactic acid, cellulose, polycaprolate, polybutyleneadipatetetephathalate, polyhydroxyalkanoate, green polyethylene, green polyethylene terephthalate, Poly3-hydoxybutrate-3hydroxyhexxanate, and poly-D-lactide. A resin and plasticizer leads to a homogenous bioplastic, which can be used to form a device such as a vaginal speculum, a specimen container, a measuring cup, a urinal, or a medical band.

Polycarbonate Nanostructures U.S. Patent 10,167,367 (Jan. 1, 2019), “Polycarbonate based Pi-Pi Stabilized Nano-Objects and Hydrogels,” Dylan J. Boday, Mareva B. Fevre, Jeannette M. Garcia, James L. Hedrick, Nathaniel H. Park, Rudy J. Wojtecki, and Mu San Zhang (IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y.) Molecules that include phenyl groups associate through supramolecular interactions to produce phenyl stacking.

The interaction between two groups is generally weak, but stacking increases these values to be significant.

Boday et al. developed a block copolymer includes watersoluble blocks bonded to one or more hydrophobic polycarbonate blocks that include pendant fluorocarbon.

These perfluoroarene-arene interactions stabilize crystal orientation. These materials are used for encapsulating drugs for slow, extended release.

Cleaning the Environment U.S. Patent 10,173,167 (Jan. 8, 2019), “Composite Method of Trapping Carbon Dioxide in Gas Mixture,” Guangjin Chen, Huang Liu, Bei Liu, Changyu Sun, and Xueteng Gao (China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing)

46 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Climate change is becoming a very real problem around the world. As such, removing CO2 whenever possible is vital. Chen et al. captured CO2 from a gas mixture with a liquid slurry containing 2 to 50 wt% imidazole or imidazole and 5 to 25 wt% metal-organic material particles.

Improving Diapers U.S. Patent 10,174,174 (Jan. 8, 2019), “Water-Absorbing Resin Particles, Absorber Comprising same, and Absorbent Article,” Yusuke Ueda, Kazuhiro Takahashi, and Lanxian Chen (SDP Global Co., Ltd., Tokyo) Absorbent articles, including disposable diapers, are usually produced by fixing water-absorbing resin to a matrix composed of cellulose fibers uniformly and packing them with organic synthetic fiber such as nonwoven fabric. In practical use, however, water-absorbing resin particles are shed or removed easily, resulting in poor absorption. Ueda, Takahashi, and Chen permanently anchored water-absorbing resin particles to the support, resulting in improved long-term absorption. These particles have a core layer containing water-absorbing resin in a reactive shell. This shell has a melting point of 50º to 180º C, enabling permanent attachment to the fibrous base material.

Reinforced Moldings U.S. Patent 10,174,195 (Jan. 8, 2019), “Reinforced Thermoplastic Resin Composition and Molded Article,” Masahito Nakamoto and Hideichiro Kawaguchi (UMG ABS, Ltd., Tokyo) Housings for devices like personal computers are becoming thinner, requiring better mechanical properties. The usual approach is increasing filler and reinforcement content. However, candidate materials also need higher weld strengths, increased heat resistance, and good moldability. Nakamoto and Kawaguchi developed a candidate resin consisting of 50 to 100 percent a polycarbonate resin and 0 to 50 percent vinyl cyanide copolymer, an inorganic filler, a glycidyl ether polymer, and polyamide 6/66 having a moisture content of 0.1 percent or less.

Improved Displays U.S. Patent 10,174,249 (Jan. 8, 2019), “Quantum Rod Composition, Quantum Rod Film and Display Device including the same,” Kyu-Nam Kim, Jin-Wuk Kim, ByungGeol Kim, Kyung-Kook Jang, Hee-Yeol Kim, Sung-Il Woo, and Tae-Yang Lee (LG Display Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea) The information age relies upon electronic displays.

Especially important are flat panel displays based on liquid crystal plasma and field emission displays with organic light emitting diodes. Quantum rod displays have high emitting efficiency and excellent reproducibility.

Kim et al. developed quantum rod films for displays.

These films contain quantum rods in polyester resins with dipolar side chains. External electric fields induce the quantum rods and side chain dipoles to orient in the same direction. Responsive to receiving light from the backlight unit, the quantum rod film emits light polarized in a direction parallel to the major axis of the quantum rods. The result is reduced driving voltage and the polarization without loss of the quantum efficiency. This results in reduced display thicknesses and production cost.

Barbed Sutures U.S. Patent 10,178,991 (Jan. 15, 2019), “Method for Forming a Barbed Suture and the Barbed Suture thus Obtained,” Pierre Bailly, Alfredo Meneghin, Sebastien Francois, and Xavier Couderc (Sofradim Production, Trevoux, France) Medical sutures depend on friction to maintain structure without slipping. Barbed sutures would help. Bailly et al. developed barbed sutures by knitting together a set of chain stitch yarns with a set of mono-filament weft yarns completing weft stitches. These fabrics are cut to isolate weft stitched chain stitches from the knit fabric resulting in knotted chain fibers. These fibers are then stretched and twisted to fix the monofilament cuts and barbs in a desired configuration and eventually heat-set to fix the barbed suture.

Cryogenic Foams U.S. Patent 10,179,428 (Jan. 15, 2019), “Mechanically Reinforced Foam Insulation Panel and Methods of Making the same,” Christopher S. Roper, David Page, Randall Schubert, Keith Y. Chong, Eric Clough, Angela M. Iler, and Faizal K. Barnes (The Boeing Co., Chicago) Aerospace vehicles use a variety of propellants for launch and later maneuvering. Cryogenic insulation allows the propellants to be maintained in a liquid state rather the gaseous form. Roper et al. developed a foam structure for increased propellant protection based on rigid insulating sheets. This structure allows the foam material to expand as needed through the reinforcing structure without developing voids or air pockets. The foam is either open-cell or closed-cell polyurethane, polyisocyanurate, polystyrene, polyimide, polyvinyl chloride, or silicone foams attached to a rigid reinforcement with a truss or honeycomb structure.

Integrated Hinges U.S. Patent 10,179,642 (Jan. 15, 2019), “Composite Structure with Integrated Hinge,” Chris Van Pelt and James Joseph Tighe (Kitty Hawk Corp., Mountain View, Calif.)

Composite materials, such as rigid carbon fiber reinforced polymers, are typically used in aerospace. For

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47

PATENTS

example, in aviation and other applications, the rigidity of composite materials may make them unsuitable for use in applications that may require a more flexible material durable over many bending cycles. Van Pelt and Tighe developed a composite structure with an integrated hinge. This structure consists layers of fiberreinforced polymer material containing localized hinges consisting of layers of bendable flexible layers with interleaving layers of rigid composite. These interleaving layers enable good attachment while retaining adequate flexibility.

PTFE Tubing U.S. Patent 10,183,098 (Jan. 22, 2019), “Polytetrafluoroethylene Tube,” Nozomi Ohshika and Syunsuke Munakata (Junkosha Inc., Kasama-Shi, Japan) A polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) tube is suitable as a medical catheter because of its chemical resistance, non-adhesiveness, and low friction. However, tubing formed by usual method of dipping has a problem of weak tensile strength. Ohshika and Munakata developed a polytetrafluoroethylene tube 0.1 mm or less with a tensile elongation at break of more than 350 percent and a melting energy of at least 0.6 J/g. The preformed tube is finally formed into a tube shape by molding. A very high shear stress is applied when the preformed body passes through a taper portion of the mold. The tube is then heated below the melting point to volatilize any volatile additives.

A19: Hydroforming a Container U.S. Patent 10,183,439 (Jan. 22, 2019), “Method for Hydroforming a Container from a Preform,” Denis Gillet (Discma AG, Zurich, Switzerland) Hydroforming can form containers as well as fill the containers with the hydroforming liquid. Gillet developed a method of hydroforming a container from a preform.

During the method, an injection nozzle is moved along the preform to inject fluid at specific locations. The nozzle is used to expand the preform as needed and even fill the container.

Molding Fiber Reinforced Composites U.S. Patent 10,183,421 (Jan. 22, 2019), “Molding Method,” Kevin Daniel Gordin, Wendy Wen-Ling, Lin,

Shatil Sinha, and Krishnan Balaji Thattai (General Electric Co., Schenectady, N.Y.) Casting is a manufacturing process in which flowable material is inserted into a mold cavity and allowed to solidify, forming a completed part. Molding fiber composites is a problem because of the movement of the fiber during the initial flow of the liquid polymer into the mold. Gordin et al. developed a method of molding a composite with continuous fibers. The method includes the steps of compressing a first composite material in a mold forming a cavity. A second composite material with continuous fibers is inserted into this cavity and the assembly compressed. The process is completed with additional heating and pressure to complete the molding.

Improved Building Insulation U.S. Patent 10,184,037 (Jan. 22, 2019), “Thermoplastic Foams and Method of Forming them using NanoGraphite,” Raymond Breindel, Roland Loh, Joseph P. Rynd, Yadolah Delaviz, and Mark E. Polasky (Owens Corning, LLC, Toledo, Ohio) Insulation for construction is very useful, but there is always a need for improved properties. Breindel et al. developed improved rigid foams for building materials using up to 10 wt% nano-graphite fillers. The graphite fillers are 10 to 100 nm in diameter and may be intercalated expanded particles. The graphite may be blended with a carrier polymer such as polystyrene or acrylics for compounding up to 40 wt%. The nanographite improves insulating value (increased R-value) for a given thickness and density as well as improved ultraviolet (UV) stability.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Corneliussen is professor emeritus of materials engineering of Drexel University in Philadelphia. He has been an SPE member since 1962 and an active member of the Philadelphia Section serving as president and national councilman for several years.

The above patents are selected from the 100 to 400 plastics-related patents found by reviewing 3,000 to 7,000 U.S. patents published each Tuesday. Readers can review the complete list of plastics-related patents by week at www.plasticspatents. com.

48 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

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2019 June 3-4 / SPE Decorating & Assembly Division TopCon and IMDA Symposium Marriott Conference Center-Cool Springs Franklin, Tenn.

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Sept. 4-6 / SPE Automotive Composites Conference & Exhibition (ACCE) The Diamond Banquet & Conference at the Suburban Collection Showplace Novi, Mich.

Contact: Alper Kiziltas, Matt Carroll Tel: 201-675-8361 Email: akizilt1@ford.com, matt.carroll@gm.com Web: www.4spe.org/Events

Sept. 9-11 / 2019 SPE Thermoforming Conference® Wisconsin Center and the Hilton Milwaukee City Center Hotel Milwaukee, Wis. Contact: Brian Winton/Steve Zamprelli Tel: 630-585-5800; 516-334-2300 Email: bwinton@ptiextruders.com; s.zamprelli@ formedplastics.com Web: www.4spe.org/Events

Sept. 16-18 / Annual SPE Blow Molding Conference 2019 Crowne Plaza Ravinia Atlanta, Ga. Contact: Ron Puvak Tel: 419-867-5400 Email: r.puvak@plastictechnologies.com Web: www.4spe.org/Events

Sept. 23-25 / SPE CAD RETEC® Color and Appearance Conference Renaissance Cleveland Hotel Cleveland, Ohio Contact: Steve Esker Tel: 614-679-4677 Email: steve@paramountcolor.com Web: www.specad.org

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Oct. 1-3 / SPE Vinyltec® 2019 Hilton Fairlawn Hotel Akron, Ohio Contact: Viv Milpass Tel: 330-342-1120 Email: vivian.malpass@tek-mark.com Web: www.4spe.org/Vinyltec

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Oct. 6-9 / SPE FlexPackCon® 2019 Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort Myrtle Beach, SC Web: www.aimcal.org/2019-r2r-usa-conference.html

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2020 March 30-April 2 / ANTEC® 2020 Marriott Rivercenter San Antonio, TX Web: www.4spe.org/ANTEC

Sept. 15-17 / SPE 2020 TPE TopCon Hilton Fairlawn Hotel Akron, OH Contact: Robert Weiler Email: rweiler@amfine.com

50 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Sept. 23-25 / SPE CAD RETEC® Color and Appearance Conference Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld Orlando, FL Contact: Cheryl Treat Email: cheryl.treat@basf.com Web: www.specad.org

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Oct. 4-7 / SPE Automotive TPO Marriott Hotel Troy, MI Contact: Karen Rhodes-Parker Email: karen@spedetroit.com Web: www.4spe.org/Events

May 14 / Sandwich Panel Design and Thermoplastic Honeycomb Technology Overview – Extending the Weight and Cost Reduction Opportunities 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)

May 17 / Patent Law Fundamentals For Scientists, Engineers and Managers PART 4 12:00 - 1:00 PM (EST)

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June 6 / The Challenges With Digitally Printing on Flexible Films With Water Based Ink 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)

June 11 / Take a Look at This: Using Visual Comparison to Evaluate and Control Appearance 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)

June 13 / An Introduction to Dynamic Mechanical Analysis

May 15-16 / BIOMEDevice Boston Boston Convention & Exhibition Center Boston, Mass.

Web: https://biomedboston.com

June 2-5 / 11th Polyimides and High Performance Polymers aka STEPI11 University of Montpellier, Triolet Campus, IAE, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5 - France Contact: Prof Marc J. Abadie Tel: +33-667-222-780 Email: marc.abadie@umontpellier.fr Web: https://stepi.umontpellier.fr

June 11-13 / PLASTEC East Jacob K. Javits Convention Center New York, N.Y. Web: www.advancedmanufacturingnewyork.com/ plastec

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To Place a Professional Services Market Place Ad Contact: Roland Espinosa Advertising Sales Representative Tel: +1 201-748-6819 | E: respinosa@wiley.com

52 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

PENG - Every Article Every Issue half island_Layout 1 2/13/19 2:00 PM Page 1

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www.plasticsengineering.org | www.4spe.org | MAY 2019 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING |

53

EDITORIAL INDEX

Agilyx.......................................................................................... 40

IBM Corp................................................................................ 32, 46

American Chemistry Council........................................................ 43

iD Additives................................................................................. 25

Americas Sytrenics LLC................................................................ 44

Indace Inc.................................................................................... 12

Anheuser-Busch InBev.................................................................. 43

Indorama Ventures...................................................................... 35

Apex Colors Inc........................................................................... 12

Iowa State University...................................................................... 9

Arkema........................................................................................ 37 Junkosha Inc................................................................................ 48 BlackRock.................................................................................... 29 Boeing Co. (The).................................................................... 46, 47

Keep America Beautiful................................................................ 36

Branch Technology Inc................................................................. 17

Kitty Hawk Corp........................................................................... 47

Brewcraft..................................................................................... 34 Broomsmen (The)........................................................................ 40

LG Display Co. Ltd................................................................. 46, 47

Budweiser.................................................................................... 37 Matrix 4....................................................................................... 12 Cardinal Health............................................................................ 43

MFG Chemical.............................................................................. 44

Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC............................................... 43

Michigan Technological University............................................... 29

China University of Petroleum-Beijing........................................... 46 Cincinnati Inc............................................................................... 17

Oak Ridge National Laboratory..................................................... 16

CKS Packaging............................................................................. 35

Owens Corning LLC..................................................................... 48

Coca-Cola.................................................................................... 35 Coperion...................................................................................... 25

Pack Protocols LLC....................................................................... 32

Covestro...................................................................................... 34 C-P Flexible Packaging................................................................. 41

RADVA Corp................................................................................ 42 Richardson Molding LLC.............................................................. 38

Discma AG................................................................................... 48 Dow Chemical........................................................................ 32, 36

Saturn Corp................................................................................. 12

DS Smith Plastics......................................................................... 43

SDP Global Co. Ltd....................................................................... 47 SHoP Architects........................................................................... 16

Edgefield McMenamins................................................................ 40

Sofradim Production.................................................................... 47

Eli Lilly & Co................................................................................. 13

SPE Foundation............................................................................ 12

ENTEK.......................................................................................... 24

Stäubli......................................................................................... 26 STIHL Inc..................................................................................... 43

FIFA World Cup............................................................................ 37

Subaru of Indiana Automotive...................................................... 43

FinalStraw.................................................................................... 30

Svenska Retursystem................................................................... 43

Finelite........................................................................................ 43 Flexo Transparent........................................................................ 41

Techmer PM................................................................................. 16

Ford Motor Co............................................................................. 11

Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd................................................................... 41

Full Belly Farm............................................................................. 43

Toyota Motor Corp....................................................................... 41 Travel Corp. (The)........................................................................ 39

General Electric Co....................................................................... 48

Tulip Plastics Corp....................................................................... 38

GMC............................................................................................ 34 Goodwill Industries International.................................................. 43

UMG ABS Ltd................................................................................ 47

Graphene Council........................................................................ 11

University of Houston.................................................................. 32

Green Science Alliance Co............................................................ 38

University of Massachusetts at Lowell.......................................... 10

Gringo Group ApS........................................................................ 29

University of North Carolina......................................................... 10

Gulf Bayport Chemicals LP........................................................... 44 Wellesley College......................................................................... 13 Herman Miller Inc........................................................................ 43

Westlake Chemical Corp............................................................... 42

HP Inc.......................................................................................... 12 Huntington Solutions................................................................... 42

XG Sciences................................................................................. 11

Plastics Engineering (ISSN 0091-9578) is published monthly, except bimonthly in July/August and November/December, by Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., a Wiley Company, 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA. The magazine is compiled and edited by the Society of Plastics Engineers, Editorial and Business Office, 6 Berkshire Blvd., Suite 306, Bethel, CT 06801 USA. Telephone +1 203-775-0471, Fax +1 203-775-8490. SPE Home Page: www.4spe.org. Communications should be sent to the Editor. Send subscription orders and claims for non-receipt to Wiley Subscription Services at the Wiley address given above. SPE members receive the magazine as a benefit of membership. Subscription rate for nonmembers is $233 for 1 year; add $100 per year for subscriptions outside North America. Single-issue price is $20. Plastics Engineering is printed by Dartmouth Printing Co., a Sheridan Group Company. Copyright 2018 by the Society of Plastics Engineers, Inc. Postmaster: Send all address changes to Plastics Engineering, John Wiley & Sons Inc., C/O The Sheridan Press, PO Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331 USA. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Plastics Engineering is indexed by Engineering Information Inc. Neither Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., nor the Society of Plastics Engineers, nor Plastics Engineering is responsible for opinions or statements of facts expressed by contributors or advertisers, either in the articles published in Plastics Engineering or in the technical papers that are presented at the meetings of the Society. Editorials do not necessarily represent the official policy of Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., or the Society. Display and classified advertisements are included as an educational service to readers of Plastics Engineering. Advertising appearing in Plastics Engineering is not to be taken as an endorsement, expressed or implied, of the respective company’s processes, products, or services represented in the ad.

54 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

Printed in the U.S.A.

MEGATRENDS IN VINYL AUTOMOTIVE, MEDICAL, CONSTRUCTION and SUSTAINABILITY

FOR INFORMATION Please visit www.4spe.org/vinyltec19 to register for attendance and to see sponsor/exhibitor opportunities as well as hotel information.

CO-CHAIRPERSON

David Schultz, Harwick Standard, Retired schultzdave54@gmail.com

CO-CHAIRPERSON Bob Weiler, Amfine rweiler@amfine.com

VINYLTEC

®

Akron, OH • October 1-3, 2019

Presented by SPE Akron Section & SPE Vinyl Plastics Division

ADVERTISERS INDEX

Aaron Equipment Company, www.aaronequipment.com/sniff...............52 Allgrind Plastics, www.allgrind.com......................................................53 AMETEK Brookfield, www.azic.com.......................................................45

Advertising Sales For print and online digital advertising sales in Plastics Engineering magazine, please contact:

Bruker, www.bruker.com/optics.................................................... Cover 4

Global Sciences Sales Director

Ewikon, www.ewikon.com......................................................................23

Dan Nicholas

ID Additives, www.iDadditives.com........................................................15

Tel: +1 716-587-2181

IMS Company, www.imscompany.com/G27................................... Cover 3

E: dnicholas@wiley.com

J.P. Curilla Associates, email: jpcecl@aol.com........................................52 Japan Steel Works, www.jswamerica.com...................................... Cover 2 John Anderson & Associates, www.plasticsjobsearch.com....................52 Konica Minolta, sensing.konicaminolta.us/products/colibri-color-software.....1 Plastic Flow, www.plasticflow.com.........................................................52

Sr. Account Manager Print & E-Media Advertising Roland Espinosa Tel: 1+ 201-748-6819 E: respinosa@wiley.com

Polyhedron Laboratories, Inc., www.polyhedronlab.com.......................52 Process Design & Technologies, www.processdesigntech.com.............52 Recycled Fillers.....................................................................................53 Rheo-Plast Associates, Inc., www.rheoplastusa.com..............................52 Roscom, Inc., www.roscom.net...............................................................53

Product and news releases for Plastics Engineering can be sent directly to: PEreleases@wiley.com

Sam North America, www.sam-na.com..................................................52 Shepherd, www.shepherdcolor.com.........................................................5 SPE, www.4spe.org............................................................................. 4, 49 SPE ACCE, www.speautomotive.com/acce-conference.............................22 SPE IAG, www.speautomotive.com/innovative-awards-gala.....................22 SPE Preferred Partner Program, www.4spe.org.....................................55

111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA

SPE Vinyltec, www.4spe.org/vinyltec19..................................................55 Struktol, www.4struktol.com..................................................................39 Tangram Technology, www.tangram.co.uk............................................53

6 Berkshire Blvd., Suite 306 Bethel, CT 06801 USA www.4spe.org

56 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | MAY 2019 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org

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