This page is an archive of news and news background stories. Stories are placed here when they expire from the news pages and are filed in date order, most recent on the top. Go to the most recent or browse through the headline links.
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PP market shake-up is the price for Elenac/Montell/Targor merger approval
March 31, 2000 -
The European Commission is forcing a revision of the polypropylene market in Europe and a liberalisation of metallocene catalyst technology as the price for approval of the polyethylene and polypropylene merger between Shell and BASF.
The Commission was concerned about the dominant position that the combination of Montell and Targor would achieve in polypropylene, giving it a market share two to three times higher than that of its main competitors. It has given the go-ahead for the merger on the proviso that the companies reduce their PP capacity by getting rid of three PP resin plants with a combined capacity of 600,000 tonnes, and a compound plant with a capacity of 130,000 tonnes. This will leave the new venture with a Western European market share of less than 30 per cent in PP, and less than 35 per cent in PP compounds.
The EC was also concerned about Shell and BASF's technology dominance should the Shell Spheripol technology join with BASF's Novolen, and the restrictions that this would place on the supply of traditional Ziegler-Natta catalysts. To counter this the companies have agreed to divest the Novolen technology business.
As well as loosening the supply of traditional catalysts, the Commission sought to liberalise the supply and use of metallocene catalysts. The interlinking of patents by the various producers of metallocenes means that no individual patent holder is free to use or license metallocene catalysts without the agreement of the others. The EC has called for a committment for BASF (through Targor) to license its patents to any one who wishes to use them, and not to use its patents to prevent third parties from licensing technology from other patent holders.
Universal blowing agent
March 31, 2000 -
A blowing agent carried in a universal masterbatch, and so more flexible than traditional polymer-specific types, has been developed by Douglas Baker Plastics. BakerBlow is an endothermic blowing agent in 25 per cent or 50 per cent active ingredient form, suitable for applications from sink prevention to foaming for weight reduction or the production of special surfaces such as wood effect.
Oxbridge buys Infa
March 31, 2000 -
Production monitoring system specialist Oxbridge Monitoring has bought Infa Communications, which produces a factory network based on Fieldbus technology. The acquisition means that Oxbridge can now offer a completely open system using industry standards throughout. Infa's Toolbox product adds tailoring ability.
Fatality at K-Resin plant explosion
March 29, 2000 -
An explosion at the Phillips Petroleum K-Resin butadiene styrene plant at Pasadena in Texas, USA this week killed one person and injured another 74. This was the same plant at which two workers were killed in an explosion in June 1999, leading to the company paying a $204,000 fine for safety violations.
On the same complex in 1989 23 people were killed when an ethylene leak ignited.
Big Billion for Scottish freezer plant
March 29, 2000 -
A 1,000 tonne Billion injection moulding machine - said to be one of the largest injection machines ever sold to a company in Scotland - has been delivered to freezer manufacturer Norfrost at Castletown in Caithness.
The Billion H4200/1000 joins two 320 tonne Billion machines among others at the plant where it will be used for large thinwalled mouldings. A factor in its purchase was its low energy consumption - total installed power of 114 kW compared with 160 kW for competitive machines.
Sepro automates K-M machines at Glen Dimplex
March 29, 2000 -
Eleven CNC-controlled Sepro robots have been ordered for use on Krauss-Maffei machines at the new 'world class' injection moulding shop being built by Glen Dimplex at its Chilton Electric site at Dunleer, north of Dublin in the Irish Republic. The plant's primary role will be to make domestic fan heaters for the company, whose brand names include Morphy Richards, Glen, Dimplex, Goblin, Roberts Radio and Belling.
Most of the robots will have a second vertical arm for removing sprues and runners from three-plate tools and some will have telescopic main vertical arms to work within restricted headroom. The two biggest robots, for use on 420 and 575 tonne moulding machines, will have a newly developed sprue arm.
This is Sepro's second major Irish order, following the installation of 27 CNC machines at Hasbro in Waterford. During 1999 the French-based company delivered a record 1,200 beam robots.
Modified rubber is biocidal
March 29, 2000 -
A process to make synthetic rubber goods innately biocidal has been described to the American Chemical Society. Dr Shelby Davis Worley of Auburn University in Alabama presented the technique of modifying any polystyrene-containing synthetic rubber with chlorine and N-halamine, which is from a class of chemicals used to stabilise the chlorine in pool water. A rubber modified in this way is said to kill high concentrations of disease-causing bacteria in 30 minutes.
While the chlorine becomes depleted over time, it can be restored by dipping the rubber in a household concentration of bleach. The technology has been licensed to Holosource Corporation in Seattle.
Brakes applied - gently - on the price of oil
March 29, 2000 -
Possible relief in the steady rise of materials prices glimmered on the horizon this week when OPEC agreed to increase oil production. The move followed lobbying by the US government, smarting from domestic petrol prices that have risen from under $1 per gallon a year ago to around $1·60 a gallon now.
OPEC is to open the tap by 6·3 per cent and produce an extra 1·45 million barrels a day. However, one US senator pointed out that because of cheating by OPEC members on the old ceiling, the new output level only represented a 500,000 barrel increase, while world demand has grown by 1·2 million barrels a day over the past year. Before the OPEC meeting broke up oil prices fell 70 ¢ a barrel, but started to edge back up again in after hours trading.
Dow extends advanced HIPS range
March 29, 2000 -
Dow Plastics has extended its Styron A-Tech range with a new grade for dairy cups and form-fill-seal dairy sheet. Styron A-Tech 1200, which goes on sale in Europe in April, is described as an 'advanced technology polystyrene for packaging applications'. It is based on Dow's patented HIPS technology and is said to give processing and end product improvements which include a five to seven per cent cycle time reduction, more uniform wall thickness distribution, 10 per cent better container top load strength and more than 20 per cent higher drop test stability.
In addition it is said to increase extruder output, reduce sheet orientation and lateral pull, to offer down gauging potential, and to give higher thermoforming speeds and increased energy efficiencies.
Borealis strike is over
March 26, 2000 -
The strike which shut down the Borealis plant at Porvoo in Finland is over and the polymer plants, cracker and phenol and aromatics plants are being started up, with return to full operation expected early this week. Borealis has also now completed the construction of its first Borstar PP plant at Schwechat in Austria. Commissioning is underway and start-up is expected in May.
The plant is based on Borealis' PE loop and gas phase two stage reactor design, and will use a proprietary catalyst to produce up to 200,000 tonnes of a wide range of PP grades. It will partly replace the output of two old slurry lines being closed down on the same site.
PET investment planned by Schmalbach-Lubeca as suitors gather
March 26, 2000 -
Schmalbach-Lubeca is planning to spend more than DM 200 million over the next two years on updating its European and Asian PET containers businesses. More than 40 injection moulding machines will be replaced with new higher performance machines, with most of these coming into operation over the next few months. The company is also to buy additional machines as part of a broadening of its product range and there will be further investment in blow moulding equipment.
In addition Schmalbach is to tighten its delivery with a new supply chain management system, and extend its 'hole-in-the-wall' operations, for which it currently has five plants in Europe.
Schmalbach-Lubeca claims world leadership in PET packaging with 22 per cent of the market in Europe and 14 per cent in North America. Despite this premiership the company's parent group VIAG is reported not to consider PET packaging as a core business, and plans to dispose of Schmalbach-Lubeca as it merges with Veba: Rexam has expressed interest in buying it, and other companies tipped as likely purchasers include Crown Cork & Seal and American National Can.
Hanna buys Turkish compounder
March 26, 2000 -
Compounder M A Hanna has expanded its European operation with the acquisition of a Turkish compounding company. It has bought Tekno Polimer in Istanbul, which primarily compounds polypropylene and nylon, but also handles ABS, PS and PBT, and recycles PET bottle scrap. Along with the compounding operation, Hanna has bought the Tekno Ticaret export division, and the sales and distribution organisation Polimeks.
Tekno Polimer has six lines with an annual capacity of 16,000 tonnes, and a further two lines for recycling fibre waste. Its sales in 1999 were $11·5 million.
DuPont links with Philips in poly-OLED research
March 26, 2000 -
Following its purchase of Uniax Corporation a week ago, DuPont has entered a collaboration with Philips Flat Display Systems to develop polymer organic light-emitting diode displays (poly-OLEDs). Philips previously held a minority stake in Uniax and will now become a licensee of DuPont iTechnologies' poly-OLED technology. The target of the two companies is to develop electronic displays on plastics substrates.
Wentworth buys Electra Form mouldmaking
March 21, 2000 -
Canadian blow moulding toolmaker Wentworth Technologies, which last year bought Orian Engineering of Mansfield Woodhouse, near Nottingham, has taken over the PET tooling operations of Electra Form in the USA.
With this addition Wentworth says that it is now the number 1 supplier of PET stretch blow moulds, both single and two stage, and the number 2 in PET preform moulds.
Agent for rolls and calendars
March 21, 2000 -
Simplex-Turbulo Company has become the UK agent for Leonhard Breitenbach of Germany, which makes rolls and calendars. Included in its production are heating and cooling rolls for a range of applications, and rolls with a range of coatings including chrome, nickel, rubber, polyurethane and thermally sprayed ceramics, metals and hard coatings.
Solid state blending process for incompatible materials
March 21, 2000 -
A solid state process for blending polymer materials has been commercialised by an American technology company, which says that its Solid State Shear Pulverization (S3P) technique can combine plastics that are incompatible or difficult to blend. Material Sciences Corporation, which operates in three sectors - coated products, engineered materials and speciality films - says that the S3P process subjects polymers to high shear and pressure without melting. This causes changes such as the breaking of molecular bonds and the creation of reactive sites, which can be recombined to change the chemical structure and physical properties of the polymers.
Possibilities include:
Broadening molecular weight distribution for improved films;
Closing the cost and performance gap between speciality elastomers and conventional rubber materials;
Producing polycarbonate/polystyrene blends for consumer products;
Producing PBT/PP blends for improved physical properties;
Producing PP/PS blends for improved physical performance at reduced cost.
The S3P process has been under development with Northwestern University and Krauss-Maffei compounder manufacturer Berstorff for three years, during which patents have been awarded in the USA and 38 other countries.
The technology is reported to be under evaluation by several materials manufacturers, and also American and European recyclers.
Wellington prospers without compounding
March 21, 2000 -
Sale of its compounding division at a knock-down price last October helped Wellington Holdings turn the corner into becoming an increasingly profitable seals manufacturer. Turnover was up in 1999 at £24·8 million (1998 £22·1 million) and while the costs of disposal and trading losses by the compounding division held back group profits (£3·2 million from £3·4 million in 1998) there was an upward trend in profits in the second half of the year.
Plastics profits grow at BASF
March 21, 2000 -
The plastics and fibres operations of BASF were star performers last year, increasing profits from Euro 539 million to Euro 640 million. The oil and gas division performed better, but these were the only two major operating divisions that increased profits.
All the product groups within the division saw increased sales, although volumes increased more than turnover as prices were eroded.
March 21, 2000 -
The Spaceminster group, which consists of a number of companies selling injection moulding machines and ancillary equipment, is expanding its range. It has a new robot from Taiwan, an Italian-built Japanese granulator, and will soon enter centralised materials handling.
The new robot, from Alfa Auto Machinery, goes on sale alongside the Apex pick and place machine which BPI Machines has sold for eight years. There is a full series of robots from a sprue picker, through beam robots from pneumatic to full CNC, to a high speed side entry machine. There are 49 standard beam robots in the catalogue and machines can be customised with different types of drive on different axes. In the first week of their availability in the UK, BPI sold eight beam robots, and says that the interest in the sprue picker has been good enough for it to order 40 units for stock.
Alfa Auto - which until two years ago was known as Take Thing - reckons to be the biggest supplier of beam robots in the Far East outside Japan. It sold around 400 beam robots and 500 sprue pickers last year, mostly in Asia, with sales totalling around £4 million. It sees its major competitors as the Japanese robot builders, primarily Star Seiki, then Yushin.
In the past 10 years Alfa has sold around 2,500 robots and 3,500 sprue pickers in the Asian/Chinese speaking market, and is now in the process of expanding sales to the USA and Europe.
For European sale the machines have been given cosmetic changes and CE mark approval. A major selling point for the UK will be price. The swing-arm sprue picker costs £1,900 complete with plinths and vacuum head. The pneumatic beam robots cost less than £5,000, with the addition of inverter drive they cost from £6,500, and the full CNC machines are £20,500 upwards. BPI says this level of pricing will be held for at least the next 12 months.
The Alfa robots also have a comprehensive range of end of arm tooling components, enabling users to build their own tooling, and modify it subsequently. BPI is also liaising with established automation companies to be able to provide full service installations.
The new granulator from Spaceminster is the Scutter, which has been sold here for some time by KT Handling. Now its Japanese producer Nissui Kako has entered a reciprocal agreement with Tria of Italy for distribution of each other's machines. Tria machines are sold here by Tria UK, a Spaceminster company.
Under the new agreement Tria will import cutting chambers for the Scutter - which is a slow running granulator without a screen, giving dust-free reduction of brittle materials - and will add the motor, electrics and casing in Italy to EC regulations. Tria UK will be selling these Italian-assembled granulators alongside the Tria range of beside-the-press machines. KT Handling continues to supply the Japanese-built Scutters.
BPI's move into centralised materials handling has still to be completed, but an announcement is expected soon.
More price increases
March 21, 2000 -
More price increases have been announced for plastics materials and additives, with shortages expected in polyethylenes. Elenac is to increase the price of polyethylene by DM 0·20/kg (approximately 10 per cent) on April 1. A further increase will be made on May 1, probably of a similar amount.
The company says that there is no end in sight to the continuing rise in the price of ethylene, and that combined with some production outages and strong demand, there is likely to be a shortage of LDPE and some grades of HDPE.
One new disturbance in the polyethylene supply chain is a strike which has shut down the Borealis plant at Porvoo in Finland. The strike, by members of the Chemical Industry Workers Union, is over collective bargaining and affects some 22 companies and 5,000 blue collar workers in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry in Finland. All the plants at Porvoo were shut down at the weekend, and at present there is no indication of how long the strike will last. At the higher performance end of polyethylenes, Ticona has announced the first price increase for its GUR UHMWPE in five years. The price goes up 20 per cent on April 1.
Ticona is also increasing capacity for GUR. A 30,000 tonnes plant is to be built at Bishop in Texas, USA, as a replacement for the existing plant at Bayport in Texas, and doubling US capacity. When it comes on line in 2002 it will supplement the plant at Oberhausen in Germany to bring Ticona's global capacity up to 60,000 tonnes.
Acordis Industrial Fibers is to raise the price of its nylon 66 fibres in the USA by 6 - 8 per cent on April 1. These fibres are used in industrial applications, primarily for vehicle airbags. It is the first increase in more than three years. Cytec Industries in the USA is increasing the price of its high solids amino resins on April 1. Prices go up between 4 ¢ and 10 ¢/lb across the company's melamines, ureas and other speciality amino resins. Brominated flame retardants from Great Lakes Chemical Corporation increased in price by 5 - 7 per cent worldwide on March 1. The increase countered higher prices for raw materials such as chlorine, and returned profitability to the point where future investment becomes possible, said the company.
Great Lakes has recently announced expansion in capacity for antioxidants and light stabilisers. Its 30 per cent antioxidant expansion comes in capacity increases this year at plants in France, the USA and South Korea, and in a new 50:50 joint venture - Gulf Stabilizer (Saudi Arabia) - with Hamed A Alzamil and Bros of Saudi Arabia due on stream next year. The light stabiliser expansion comes from the construction of a tri-acetone amine plant at Ravenna in Italy, which will make Great Lakes independent of other chemical companies for intermediates for the production of its Lowilite hindered amine light stabilisers. This will be accompanied by a doubling of capacity for finished HALS products at its Waldkraiburg plant in Germany. Intermediates production will start in the third quarter of 2001, with the full range being achieved by the end of 2002.
Chronos Richardson takes on Scott equipment
March 20, 2000 -
Materials handling specialist Chronos Richardson has been appointed UK distributor for the entire Scott Equipment Company range from the USA. This incorporates ribbon, paddle, plough and twin screw mixers; blending equipment; grinders, crushers and shredders; its patented AST dryer and product separators. One facet of the agreement is that Chronos Richardson will build all the electrical control panels for UK installation.
Kawasaki seeks broader robot application
March 20, 2000 -
Industrial Automation of Nottingham has been appointed an 'integration partner' by Kawasaki Robotics (UK). There are more than 800 Kawasaki robots working in the UK, mainly in automotive assembly, and IAL's appointment is intended to strengthen penetration into other industries.
DuPont buys light emitting plastic company
March 20, 2000 -
DuPont has deepened its interest in light emitting plastics by buying Uniax Corporation of the USA, with which it has had an association through its links with Cambridge Display Technology.
Uniax Corporation was set up in 1990 with conducting polymer technology licensed from the University of California. Light emitting polymers - or polymer-OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) - are seen as alternatives to liquid crystal displays, but brighter, lower cost, consuming less power and weighing less. Applications are expected in portable electronic devices such as telephones and pocket computers. DuPont has mused on the future possibilities of 'electronic newspapers' - displays which can be rolled up and carried.
The OLED market is currently largely glass-based and is worth around $3 million globally. But its future is seen more in flexible substrates, taking its growth to $700 million by 2005.
Back from Mexico to manage at Oldbury
March 20, 2000 -
The new manager of BIP's Engineering Thermoplastics business at Oldbury in the West Midlands is Mark Timmins, who returns to the UK after a period as general manager of BIP's Mexican moulding materials and moulded product plant. Before that he was general manager of the company's paper and textile resin business.
Atochem to expand acrylics
March 20, 2000 -
Elf Atochem is to build a speciality acrylic monomers plant at its Carling site in north eastern France. The 50,000 tonnes plant will come on stream at the end of next year.
Fastex combines production in the North East
March 20, 2000 -
ITW Fastex has opened its new plant at Seaham in County Durham. The plant has 37,000 sq ft of floor space, more than twice that of the company's previous premises in Basingstoke. This enables Fastex to bring together the manufacturing for its security products and industrial fasteners businesses, which were previously spread over two sites in Basingstoke.
David S Smith expands into the USA
March 20, 2000 -
Packaging manufacturer David S Smith (Holdings) has bought American injection moulder Formative Engineering for $6·4 million. This gives Smith an American base for its Worldwide Dispensers business which makes taps for liquid packaging containers, 40 per cent of which are already exported to North America. Formative Engineering has 18 injection moulding machines and a toolroom, located near Minneapolis.
The David S Smith group has an annual turnover of £1·1 billion, with 10,000 employees at 90 sites across Europe making plastic and paperboard packaging.
Bonar pulls together European rotomoulding businesses
March 10, 2000 -
Low and Bonar is to consolidate its European rotational moulding businesses and to sell off its UK-based Bonar Polymers operation, which has different products and technology from the rest of Bonar Plastics' rotational moulding activities.
The new organisation, Bonar Plastics Europe, will be the largest rotational moulding group in Europe, and will incorporate Bonar Plastiques of France, Bonar Rotaform of the UK, Fusion Kunststoffen of the Netherlands, Metas of Denmark, Rhein Bonar Kunststoff-Technik of Germany, Rotec Plastics of Spain and Spila of Italy.
Euro 128/tonne price increase for polypropylene
March 8, 2000 -
Montell is increasing the price of its Moplen polypropylene by around 17 per cent on April 1. The actual price increase is Euro 128/tonne.
The company says that this increase reflects the combined impact on European production costs from both the continuing rise in the cost of oil, now around $30/barrel, and the strength of the dollar against the Euro, which together have severely depressed petrochemical margins, and polypropylene margins in particular.
Montell last increased its prices in the last quarter of 1999. It has had monthly increases in monomer prices, but has not increased its own prices in this year's first quarter.
DSM in Chinese nylon link
March 7, 2000 -
DSM Fibre Intermediates is to take a 25 per cent share in a joint venture with Guangdong Xinhui Meida Nylon Co for the production of nylon 6 in China. The new plant, due on stream this year, will have a capacity of 45,000 tonnes and will be based on advanced Inventa-Fischer technology, new to China.
Production will be used for both textile fibres and engineering plastics, mainly for the Chinese market. DSM Fibre Intermediates will supply part of the caprolactam.
Reifenhäuser sources materials on the internet
March 7, 2000 -
Reifenhäuser is now buying materials on the internet. The German film and sheet extrusion system manufacturer has added a Purchase page to its website where its central purchase/material management department will publish current requirements. An on-line form enables potential suppliers to contact the company if they are interested in supplying to the published specification.
Reifenhäuser has also added a Special Sales page where it is offering parts that it no longer needs for its own production of equipment. The company's recent withdrawal from the pipe and profile extrusion business may make this a good bargain basement.
PET reclaim is up, but recycling is still risky
March 7, 2000 -
The amount of PET bottles recovered for reprocessing in Europe in 1999 increased 25 per cent over the 1998 figure at 219,000 tonnes. But the greater availability of scrap bottles is still not enough to meet the investment in reprocessing capacity.
PETCORE, the association promoting the recovery, recycling and valorisation of PET containers in Europe, said that since 1992 there has been a 45 per cent year on year growth rate in the recycling of PET bottles. Although this rate was not reached in 1999, it still comfortably exceeds the annual growth in consumption, estimated to be around 15 per cent. The recycling rate is expected to rise again in the current year.
But despite the increase in reclaimed scrap, recyclers were still under pressure. The collection figures for 1999 are lower than the estimated available recycling capacity, said PETCORE, and a substantial amount of the scrap has been exported out of Europe. This has had a negative effect on the capacity utilisation by European PET recyclers.
During the year recycling plants in both the Netherlands and Belgium were closed, although this was balanced by expansions in France and Spain. However, further capacity expansions are being planned, with more facilities expected to be operational in 2001.
Profitability is inevitably linked to the price of virgin PET, and PETCORE commented that despite a slight price increase in 1999, profitability is 'still not sufficient to guarantee a strong financial position'.
Alternative DVD material passes its tests and opens the way to piracy prevention
March 3, 2000 -
Dow Plastics has now put a name to the material-specific anti-piracy optical media system it announced in 1998, and has taken the key material through practical trials at a British CD moulder.
The MediaShield program relies on using a specific material to mould DVDs, pirated copies moulded in other materials being unreadable on the players. An independent body would monitor the supply and use of the material, so that, unlike currently with polycarbonate, it would not be possible for counterfeiters to obtain supplies.
The material proposed is polycyclohexylethylene (PCHE) with which Dow has moulded DVDs at Plasmon. Trial mouldings were able to replicate the small data pits of the 15 GB per layer DVDs foreseen for high resolution replay of feature films.
PCHE is a hydrogenated polystyrene with high levels of optical purity and clarity. It maintains light transmittance across a full spectrum with very low birefringence, giving read back with violet, blue and green laser sources, which are seen as replacing the longer wavelength red lasers used today as higher density discs call for lasers to focus on smaller data pits. In processing terms PCHE offers advantages in low (60 - 80 degC) melt and mould temperatures, and low (less than 0·01 per cent) inherent moisture coupled with low water absorption, eliminating the need for pre-drying to achieve disc flatness. PCHE may be the future, but for now Dow is still a major player in the supply of polycarbonate for optical discs. So much so that it is adding a new DVD resin line to its polycarbonate plant at Stade in Germany. The plant, for Calibre 1080 DVD polycarbonate, will come on stream in September, with a capacity of 20,000 tonnes. It will be followed in mid-2001 by a further plant for the same grade at LG Dow Polycarbonate in Korea. Dow's worldwide polycarbonate capacity is currently more than 225,000 tonnes.
Another alternative to polycarbonate for CDs and DVDs is PMMA, which is being promoted by Elf Atochem and Röhm. PMMA is also said not to need pre-drying - although this is reported as applying more to material delivered in sealed bags than bulk supplies stored in silos - and although it will absorb more moisture than PC, it does so at a slower rate. The higher light transmission properties of acrylic are also seen as more suitable for blue laser players than polycarbonate.
Röhm's Plexiglas DQ501 grade was introduced a year ago, and is in use at NOD (New Optical Disc) in Germany for CDs and DVDs. Röhm says that use of DQ501 for the DVD-5 format is already a production reality, and that it is now working on the DVD-9 format, for which it says results are encouraging. In the DVD-9 format the two information layers are read from one side, making thickness and flatness of the discs crucial for optimum performance. Röhm has now opened a specific web page - www.dq501.com to provide guidance on the use of acrylic in optical storage media.
Dow has also produced guidance material on the use of Calibre 1080DVD for the DVD-9 format in the shape of DVD-9 Moulding and Bonding, a report based on developmental work in its optical media laboratories in the USA and at Eques Coatings in the Netherlands. The report is available through www.dow.com.
DEHP reclassified as non-carcinogenic
March 2, 2000 -
DEHP (di[2-ethylhexyl]phthalate), one of the plasticisers for PVC banned specifically by the EU for use in some baby toys, has been given a clean bill of health in terms of its likelihood to cause cancer, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It had previously been classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans after research on rodents, but the IARC has now concluded that the effects seen in rats and mice are not relevant to humans.
The same conclusion had already been drawn by the American Council on Science and Health last summer.
The EU ban on DEHP-plasticised PVC is part of a broader ban on phthalate plasticisers which it is argued can leach out into a baby's mouth when a toy is sucked, and which are claimed to cause liver, kidney and testicular damage.
Montell in Chinese PP plant evaluation
March 2, 2000 -
Montell is to evaluate involvement in a polypropylene plant in China through its affiliate company in Taiwan, Taiwan Polypropylene Co (TPP). Montell owns 35 per cent of TPP.
TPP is to conduct a feasibility study in association with Qingdao Kailian Group, which has more than 40 chemical operations, mainly involved in oil refining. The proposal is to build a world scale Spheripol plant which will be 90 per cent owned by TPP and Montell, with the balance controlled by Kailian, which will also supply the propylene and ethylene.
UK agent for Dutch mixers
March 2, 2000 -
Lindor Machinefabrieken of Holland has appointed Orthos (Engineering) as UK agent for its mixers. Lindor specialises in machines for the gentle mixing of dry materials, which are built in 12 sizes from 70 to 14,000 litres. The mixing action involves rotating the drum, and turning the material with tapered scoops inside, inducing a three-dimensional figure of eight flow pattern.
Lindor says this design has no dead space - 100 per cent of the charge is subjected to the mixing action - and there are no paddles or rakes inside to apply shear forces to the material.
Residence times are low - typically between 1 and 3 minutes - so throughput is high. The largest machine can run at up to 80 tonnes/hr. Power consumption is said to be very low.
Guest adds oxygen barrier pipe with Battenfeld coex line
March 2, 2000 -
Special purpose pipe manufacturer John Guest of West Drayton in Middlesex is to add oxygen barrier pipe to its range, and is investing around £283,000 in a five-layer extrusion line from Battenfeld.
The pipe will use EVOH as the oxygen barrier, with a bonding layer either side and base materials for the pipe inner and outer surfaces. Although only three materials will be used, the line will have five extruders because it is felt that extrusion output control gives significantly better control of the thickness of each layer than splitting the output from a single extruder. All five extruders will run under a single control system.
The line will be supplied with calibration and cooling, pipe diameter measuring system and take-off unit. The die will come from a Swiss associate company of John Guest. Target output rate is 35 m/min.
Pipe coiler cuts and marks length as well
March 2, 2000 -
A pipe coiling machine which produces finished length-marked coils of polyethylene pipe has been developed and patented by Pipe Coil Technology. The system integrates a single head coiler with cutting and marking devices, which enables coils to be produced with meter marking from zero at the beginning of each coil.
Polypropylene straps are applied automatically to intermediate layers and the whole coil, staggered so that they can be identified when cut by the installer.
The machine runs fully automatically at speeds up to 8 m/min and can be supplied with a fixed diameter coil wheel for pipe up to 63 mm, or a variable diameter wheel for pipe up to 90 mm. Both versions are portable for movement between extrusion lines.
Year end snaps DSM's fortunes upwards
March 2, 2000 -
1999's whole year profits for DSM's Polymers & Industrial Chemicals division - which includes the polyethylene and polypropylene businesses - look disappointing at face value, showing a fall of 31 per cent over 1998 on slightly reduced sales. But they mask an upsurge at the end of the year which brought fourth quarter profits up by 203 per cent on the 1998 fourth quarter, from sales 30 per cent ahead.
The Performance Materials division, where DSM keeps its engineering plastics and elastomers, showed similar trends, except that while year on year sales dipped, annual profits increased 53 per cent as some activities were disposed of. The fourth quarter also showed an upswing, with sales up 12 per cent (on a smaller portfolio) and profits up 111 per cent.
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Borealis has also now completed the construction of its first Borstar PP plant at Schwechat in Austria. Commissioning is underway and start-up is expected in May.