Plastic Fantastic

By the summer of 2009, consumers can expect to see plastic photovoltaic roof tiles on the market. The product will feature an injection moulded tile with a compression laminated photovoltaic layer.

Getting the tiles to market hasn’t been easy. Peter Bressler, founder and principal of Bresslergroup, a Philadelphia-based industrial design and product development firm, explained how he did it in this video report. He is speaking at the Industrial Designers Society of America’s recent national conference in Phoenix.

PRW's sister title Plastics News is teaming up with the 3,500-member IDSA to deliver a series of videos from the event.

PN reporters interviewed students, educators, inventors and design/innovation leaders from such firms as Lenovo, Nike, Dell, Navistar, HP, Bayer, GLS, Hong Kong Polytechnic and many more.

The series is called “Design Briefs: An original video series on collaboration, education, sustainability, China & more.” The interview with Bressler is the first in the series. Watch for at least 12 video clips, to be released one per week, on the IDSA.org and Plastics News Global Group Web sites.

A £12m project to develop the technology that will eventually allow e-readers to display in colour has been launched by Liquavista and Plastic Logic.

The three year research programme will allow the two companies to develop next generation flexible electronic displays using Liquavista’s patented electrowetting technology.

Applications could include e-magazines, watches, phones, secondary displays on laptops, and consumer or medical devices with an electronic display.

Liquavista, a spin-out company of Philips Research Labs, is expanding its scientific and engineering team in Cambridge by recruiting 15 technical and five commercial staff members.

It launched its first display platform using its electrowetting technology earlier this month, aimed at watches and mobile phone secondary displays.

Liquavista vp marketing and sales, Simon Jones, told PRW.com: “It’s great news for the UK. It’s showing we have the continued ability to create these leading technologies, and build and maintain a national competence in plastic electronics and display.”

The research will be partially funded by the government sponsored Technology Strategy Board.

“There will be some commercialisation phase after, and possibly parallel, with the back end of the development project,” Jones added. “It’s not going to be one big leap because there will be simple flexible displays first and then gradually more complex displays.”

An image is formed on an electrowetting display when a voltage is applied to a coloured oil – this makes the oil contract. The technology will create thin, flexible and light screens that display bright, colourful images and show video content with low power consumption.

More than 90% of the manufacturing cycle uses standard LCD manufacturing equipment and processes.

The majority of Liquavista’s next generation display research is currently carried out in its Eindhoven facility in The Netherlands. The company has 60 staff worldwide – this number does not include the new hires.

The new jobs would be split between the company’s office in Abbotsley, outside Cambridge, and Plastic Logic’s Cambridge offices.

The displays will initially use plastic substrates as the carrier for the TFT backplane. Jones said there could be a plastic backplane on products within two to three years.

“It’s the subject of active development,” he said.

“Some of the research from [the Plastic Logic joint project] and some of our own research independent of that project will together help to develop [a plastic backplane].”

DuPont has developed the first oil pan module for serial vehicle manufacture which will be used on Daimler’s 4 cylinder diesel engines, initially on the Mercedes C Class.

The company highlighted the engineering polymer breakthrough, for its Zytel 70G35 HSLR nylon, at this week’s Fakuma show. The 6 litre capacity oil pan comprises a die cast aluminium upper shell and multi functional lower shell made from the nylon.

The component, moulded by automotive supplier Bruss, offers a 1.1 kg weight saving over an entirely aluminium design and offers scope for further functional integration in future.

The pan involves a sophisticated sandwich design with a second injection moulded part welded onto the pan’s flat section. This design helps to calm the oil churned by the crankshaft while high ribs in the sump, which act as baffles, also help to achieve this calming.

The project involved close cooperation between DuPont and the moulder with finite element analysis techniques used to refine positioning of the ribbing, improving the stiffness of the critical flat section of the plan.

Flow studies carried out by DuPont showed the impact of wall thickness, gate number and positioning and weld line formation and warpage behaviour.

In fact, DuPont noted, the high flow rate of the Zytel enables one single gate to fill the mould cavity completely, resulting in reduced tooling costs and simplified process control.

Tests at DuPont’s technical centre at Geneva involved the combined engine and transmission “being dropped forcefully by a fork lift truck”. Real life tests at Bruss also confirmed the performance of the polymer-based component.

A new laundry detergent pack designed in the UK demonstrates efforts being made by brand owners to answer criticism about over-packaging.

Breaking away from the usual bottle shape, the compact packaging for Ariel’s new Excel Gel is described as a “pebble”. Design features reduce waste in the packaging and also the detergent dosing by the consumer.

Structural packaging design firm Studio Davis, based in Bath, worked on the project with in-house design managers at Procter & Gamble, owner of the Ariel brand. Will Davis at Studio Davis told PRW that as Excel Gel is a new product, P&G wanted to have a new type of pack.

The result is a headstanding format, which uses 45% less packaging than the current Ariel dilute liquid. It has various integrated components that also help its environmental credentials.

The container is topped by a snap-on/snap-off doser, which is two-shot moulded from polypropylene and a TPE. An integrated “visi-strip” gives consumers a clear gauge on how much gel they have remaining in the pack.

Precision dosing by the consumer is helped by a squeezable form designed to be intuitive. The packaging is optimised to spring back into shape and ensures the consumer has complete control in dispensing the gel.

Davis said project time was spent on material flow simulation to make the polypropylene “squeezy” and avoid the buckling that often happens with other detergent containers.

No information about the packaging manufacturer has been made public by P&G.

Sabic Europe has launched a conversion efficient polypropylene flowpact composite for thin wall packaging, pails and containers plus caps and closures markets.

The chemicals giant said PP FPC55 provides faster moulding cycles with excellent flow behaviour and an exceptional balance of impact and stiffness, allowing for thinner wall options.

It added that the key issues facing the packaging industry are increased cost pressure driven by rising energy prices and a stagnating demand in a mature market.

Sabic argued that improving conversion economics was therefore “vital” to manufactures within the packaging industry.

PP technical marketing engineer for packaging, Diederik Goyvaerts, said the material could help speed up moulding cycles by 15%. He added that the material also offered “superior flow behaviour” similar to 70MFI due to its “unique rheology”.

Sabic also offered the material with an additive package. Increased crystallisation speed enabled shorter cooling times and more efficient conversion. Sabic added that parts down gauging options become a reality using the improved rigidity while the impact performance remains at a “superior” level.

Ukrainian packaging producer Hekro PET is reported to be preparing to manufacture a new barrier food packaging film by the end of this year.

Hekro is based in Khmelnitsky, Ukraine, and is a specialist in PET bottle preforms and polyethylene stretch film.

The company was planning to launch its new barrier film - claimed to be the first such product produced in the Ukraine - next month, according to Ukrainian investment company Alfa Capital.

The former Soviet country currently imports all barrier film for use in wrapping meat and other fresh food from Western European countries.

Alfa Capital believed Hekro will benefit from being the Ukraine's first domestic manufacturer of barrier flexible packaging. It is unlikely to be challenged immediately by other local film producers because of the higher technology required for such a development, the investment firm predicted.

In 2006, Hekro installed a high speed 5-layer cast stretch film line supplied by Battenfeld Gloucester Europe GmbH.

The Ukrainian firm is a leading bottle preform producer employing Husky injection moulding machines. It is a major supplier to the Ukraine's beverage sector.

Hales Tool & Die, the Maldon-based supplier of components to mouldmakers and injection moulders, has started some new services and launched a new website.

The company is now able to purchase mould hose by the metre, and supply with crimped ends, fittings and coupling to suit specific requirements of customers. This is a free in-house assembly service offered by Hales and the company says it is one of many initiatives designed to benefit its customers.

Hales is also now supplying ejectors ground to the customer's required finished length. The company said: "We take a standard length ejector from our vast stock and cut it to any length that the customer needs."

It uses a special in-house machine to supply ejectors cut to a tolerance of -0/+0.05mm. As well as offering DIN standard ejector pins, Hales also cover a wide range of ejectors including sleeves, blades and stepped pins, plus special ejectors made to order.

The company's new website at www.halesmastip.co.uk has easier navigation, a download section and an online catalogue. The website and the company's Global Strength, Local Knowledge initiative, first seen at PDM 08, reflects its position as a worldwide supplier to the industry with an image that reflects on the company's Australian roots, it said.

The British Plastics Federation has launched its new website this week featuring an industry ‘facebook’ plus an exciting new tool called Plastipedia – an on-line plastics encyclopedia.

The website takes the industry into the plastics equivalent of social networking. Plastbook will facilitate exchange of experience between personnel in the industry.

It will also provide a facility to ask and provide answers to particular questions which could lead to business development opportunities for the respondents, said the BPF.

Public and industrial affairs director Philip Law described Plastipedia as “the world’s largest on-line plastics encyclopedia”. The tool covers polymers, additives, processing technologies and products and will feature animations of processes.

Other features include an Exporters’ Toolbox, with plastics market data for 80 countries, and an Industry Directory, containing profiles on some 2,000 UK plastics companies.

“The site has been entirely re-styled,” Law added. “Major new additions include downloadable buyers’ guides to the major players in the industry. Featuring BPF members they represent a tangible, new, membership benefit.”

The BPF's earlier website was already very popular with 1.5 million unique visitors per annum. The BPF website is at www.bpf.co.uk

Despite recent collapses in waste plastic market supplies, the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers has authorised increases in waste plastics that must be collected and prepared for recycling across the EU.

A new waste management framework directive has been approved boosting minimum recycling rates for plastics and other household wastes, saying that by 2020, the EU’s 27 member states must recycle half (by weight) of this refuse.

The same potentially applies to industrial plastic waste as well, where municipal waste collection is used by companies and “these waste streams are similar to waste from households”, said the legislation.

Also, by 2015 separate waste collection systems must be established for plastics waste, along with paper, metal and glass. Welcoming the legislation, a council communiqué said: “By promoting the use of waste as a secondary resource, the new legislation aims to reduce landfill and greenhouse gas emissions in landfills”.

It also lists compulsory priorities for waste management within national programmes and policies as follows: waste prevention (the preferred option); re-use; recycling materials; recovery (including energy recovery), and safe disposal (only to be used as a last resort), potentially pushing even more plastic into a recycling stream, whose market is currently in deep trouble through mass exports to China ending.

Governments across the globe agree that BPA is safe in the current allowed levels despite the concerns that have emerged from the US this week.

Trade body PlasticsEurope made this argument to head off a panic after the evidence used by the US government on BPA safety was judged “inadequate” (PRW.com 30 October).

PlasticsEurope said BPA safety was “of the highest concern” for its PC/BPA Group and that the group would continue to comply with Europe’s regulatory authorities.

However, the trade body added that in Europe BPA had one of the most “rigorous” and “conclusive” safety examinations of any substance. It said the updated European Union Risk Assessment published in June found that BPA was safe for its intended uses.

It said that this assessment involved government experts considering several hundreds of studies including both small exploratory and comprehensive, statistically-robust studies.

The trade body added that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) revisited BPA safety in a report published in July and confirmed the safety of existing food contact applications.

PlasticsEurope added that the EFSA has now assessed the American Medical Association (JAMA) report. It issued a statement last Friday saying that the JAMA report provided no grounds to revise the current allowed BPA levels.