Extrusion

With sales returning to the levels seen in 2008, the company's best year on record, film and sheet extrusion systems supplier Macro Engineering & Technology Inc. (Mississauga, ON) is planning to expand its production floor space by approximately 40%. The new room will be used mainly for setting up and testing machinery prior to shipment.

In a sign that global investment is picking up in the plastics sector, Taiwanese compounding extruder supplier Sino-Alloy Machinery Inc. (Taoyuan) has scored a number of successes of late in delivery of equipment to Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East.

When a heat exchanger begins to fail or becomes problematic, it may be indicative of various problems ranging from inappropriate mechanical design to unforeseen chemical reactions. But, is it better to replace or to repair a heat exchanger?—By American Power Services (Erlanger, KY)

Swiss extruder manufacturer Maillefer has chosen a new CEO, promoting Peter Roos to the position. His predeccesor, Pentti Hätälä, recently turned 65 but will continue as the chairman of the board of the Maillefer Group. 

Sheet, compounds, and packaging products supplier Spartech Corp. (St. Louis, MO) will open a new technology center in St. Louis, combining its material, product, and packaging development centers into one location. The new center will expand to an 80,000- to 100,000-ft² facility that Spartech plans to have operational by mid-summer 2010.

Some plastics packaging processors' sustainability plans are further along than others. Among the pace setters is Innovia Films, which has earned CarbonNeutral certification for its range of cellulose-based NatureFlex coated biodegradable and compostable packaging films. 

Extrude hydrophilic materials PET and PLA with no need for pre-drying: That's the promise being made by extruder manufacturers PTi and Bandera, which have teamed up to offer dryer-less extrusion lines for processing sheet from these materials.

The launch of our Extrusion Expert series of webinars in January generated great feedback and a long list of questions. Here we share with you not only the questions your competitors and peers asked, but also the answers to those. It’s an extrusion information overload.

The web inspection system FSP600 is said to offer 100% surface control of transparent or opaque/colored films at speeds up to 800 m/min and resolutions of up to 50 µm. The processor has a choice of lighting technologies depending on transmission or reflection modes with high frequency fluorescent lamps with a specially designed focusing rod, high power red/white LEDs, or fiber optics with metal halide lamps.

Small particles of gas-generating additives infused into the polymer melt during processing can reduce resin requirement by up to 50% and carbon footprint by up to 45%, according to its developer, Polyfil Corp. (Rockaway, NJ). The additives create a microcellular structure (cells less than 100 µm in size) via a chemical reaction that releases a small volume of gas, producing a cellular structure at a size unachievable with present-day chemical foaming agent (CFA) technology.