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Biopolymers making an impact
Biopolymers – resins derived from organic feedstocks – are still in their infancy, but interest is growing. Jim Hay, vice-president, sales and marketing, with DuPont Engineering Polymers, told a breakfast seminar at Plast-Ex that the company's Loudon, Miss. plant is now producing steadily, using a patented fermentation process. It makes Sorona EP, a material similar to PBT, and a version of Hytrel thermoplastic elastomers.
"We have 60-million lb of capacity right now," he said. "As we get our volumes higher, we will realise cost-savings more fully. These resins are being priced similarly to current materials."
Although the Loudon facility uses corn as its source for feedstock, Hay stressed that the company makes extensive use of the non-food parts of the plant. "We've said we're not trying to take the food off someone's table," he stated, "and there is a lot of glucose in the non-edible parts of the plant that we can use."
Sorona EP is presently being used in films, and work on using it as an engineering polymer in moulding is just starting. Hay added that a number of users are blending the biopolymers with conventionally sourced resins, and market acceptance seems to be occurring.
"Five or 10 or 20 years out," he said, "I think we could be looking at significant change in feedstocks for polymers, with petrochemical sources being much less important."
Prof. Mohini Sain, who works on biomaterials at the University Of Toronto, told the seminar there are various types of resin that could be produced from vegetable sources.
"Polycarbonate would be easy to make from carbohydrate rather than from hydrocarbons," he said. "The same is true for polyamides and polyurethanes also.
"Not everything being tried is working out, and thermoplastic starch being made in Italy from potatoes and corn performs poorly. But there are many exciting areas opening up in biomaterials."
www2.dupont.com

Jim Hay

Ingenia adds capacity internationally
Ingenia Polymers is expanding its Brantford, Ont., facility's capabilities to broaden its flexibility, adding an additional 100-million lb a year of black masterbatch capacity at its Houston, Tex., plant, and is planning to open a new plant in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, by late next year.
Ingenia's president John Lefas made the announcement at a reception during Plast-Ex 2007. A recently announced acceleration in the federally allowed write-down for new equipment was an incentive for the Brantford expansion.
"There's a lot of carbon black masterbatch capacity out there," he says, "but it's getting antiquated, and customers want higher quality materials. Our expansion is to serve high-end carbon black needs for wire and cable, and pipe."
He will not yet state the size of the Saudi installation, but says it will produce the company's basic range of masterbatches and compounds, superblends and additives. It will serve Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
"We are also looking at Egypt and Turkey as burgeoning markets," he says. "Saudi Arabia especially has a very young population, and is trying to create secondary industries. They have basic petrochemicals, but they need to start making more value-added products."
There are a lot of joint-ventures with US firms in Saudi Arabia, many of which are already Ingenia's customers. It was demand from existing customers that promoted the decision to start the Arabian facility.
www.ingeniapolymers.com

Ingenia Polymers co-founders John and Maria Lefas.

Ontario takes aim at plastic bags
The Province of Ontario is launching a voluntary program to cut use of plastic retail shopping bags. In a partnership with the Recycling Council of Ontario and grocer and retail associations, the Environment Ministry is offering incentives to customers who use reusable cloth or canvas bags, as well as promoting recycling initiatives.
The Canadian Plastics Industry Association has welcomed the move, which side-steps the threat of regulatory limits on bag use. "Manufacturers have been working with retailers, municipalities, and other partners for many years to promote the wise use of plastic shopping bags," said Serge Lavoie, President and CEO of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA). "We welcome this initiative because it will help accelerate our efforts. The Minister's announcement will have a positive impact on the sector by encouraging new recycling streams and technologies, and this will lead to new job creation opportunities as well."
Plastic bags have been banned in various places, including Ireland parts of Australia, with mixed results. They are widely re-used items, and there have been many efforts made to encourage bag recycling across Canada.
www.cpia.ca

Sector Council launches new certification
The Canadian Plastics Sector Council launched its new Certified Plastics Practitioner designation at Plast-Ex 2007. The first recipient was Paul Waller of the Plastics Touchpoint Group (Thornhill, Ont.), who is seen here receiving the award from CPSC executive director Charlie Brimley.
www.cpsc-ccsp.ca

France's Billion enters Canadian market
Billion SAS (Belignat, France) is making a major move into the North American market. Its Canadian debut was in early May when it exhibited a 200-ton, two-material injection moulding machine at Plast-Ex.
"This is the second largest show in North America," said general sales manager Olivier Crave, "so it made sense to have a start-up here. We brought a two-component machine, so we had something interesting to show." Billion was a pioneer in multi-material machines, making its first two-colour press in 1961. The full range is from 40 to 2500 metric tonnes.
"We are trying to offer a high technology machine," Crave added. "It makes no sense to compete against the companies already here with standard machines. Canada has good automotive and packaging markets here, and we are looking at other opportunities as well."
Service on Billion presses is handled by Tech Sales Co. (Richmond Hill, Ont.) There is not currently a Canadian sales agency for Billion.
The company was formerly part of the Mannesmann group, but was bought out two years by its current head, Korbinian Kiesl.
www.billion.fr

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Changes

Steve Braig is taking over as chief executive officer of Engel North America (Guelph, Ont. and York, Pa.) in June. He succeeds Walter Jungwirth, who is returning home to Austria to head the company's newly formed global business unit for packaging. www.engel-ec.com
	Steve Braig

D-M-E (Madison Heights, Mich.) has announced a new global product line initiative aimed at coordinating product management, new-product development and standardization across all regions. To lead this effort it has appointed Craig Messerknecht to the new position of vice-president of marketing and global product management. Messerknecht ran the MRO business division of D-M-E for the past five years. Under the new structure, product families will serve global markets, and standard products will be tailored for local markets. These changes enable D-M-E to be more responsive to market demands, passing along cost benefits to customers. www.dme.net

Craig Messerknecht

Kim Trimble is the new account manager for Ontario for downstream extrusion equipment suppliers CDS (Lachine,Que.). He can be reached at 905-473-5756 or ktrimble@cdsmachines.com.
www.cdsmachines.com

Xaloy (New Castle, Pa.) has named Tim Womer as chief technology officer. He was formerly vice president of engineering. www.xaloy.com
	Tim Womer

Tom Johns, a longtime design and application engineer for Liberty Coating Equipment, has joined Extrusion Dies Industries, LLC (Chippewa Falls, Wis.) as product manager for the Liberty range of slot die coating systems. EDI is marketing this product line under the Liberty tradename after purchasing Liberty Coating Equipment in March.
www.extrusiondies.com

Auxiliary equipment maker Maguire Products Inc. (Aston, Pa.) has purchased a 54,000-sq ft building – its sixth since opening in 1977 – to handle growth into larger dryers, and to house production transferred from its granulator operation in Rhode Island, which was closed in March. President Stephen Maguire said the company will continue to make its three current models of granulators at the new building, but will no longer develop new granulators.
www.maguire.com

Coperion Group (Stuttgart, Germany), which makes compounding extruders and Waeschle materials-handling and conveying equipment, has been sold by one private equity firm to another. Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (Frankfurt, Germany) bought it from London, UK-based Lyceum Capital Partners LP in a deal announced May 10. The price was US$400-million. Coperion Group had 2006 sales of about US608 million. Its North American operation, Coperion Corp., is based in Ramsey, N.J.
www.coperion.com

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Coming Events

May 21-24: Chinaplas, at the Guangzhou International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Pazhou, Guangzhou, China. (Contact: Hong Kong 852-2811-8857 or chinaplas@adsale.com.hk).

May 22: CPIA's Canadian Natural Composites Council annual general meeting, at the Hall of Ideas EFG, Madison, Wis., during the Ninth International Conference on Wood & Natural Fiber-Plastics Composites (Contact: Marilyne Berman, 905-678-7405 Ext. 278, or mberman@cpia.ca)

May 24: Quebec plastics pioneers social hour and dinner, at the Whitlock Golf and Country Club in Hudson, Que. (Contact: Terry Browitt at 450-458-5591 or tjbrowitt@terinex.com)

June 5: Annual Shotgun Golf Tournament of the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association. At Pine Knot Golf & Country Club Dorchester, Ont. (Contact: Julie McFarlane at 519-653-7265 or info@ctma.com).

June 14: Canadian Plastics Pioneers, annual golf tournament and reunion dinner. At Richmond Hill Golf & Country Club, Richmond Hill, Ont. (Contact: Peter Stephen at 905-940-5577 or pstephen@stephensales.com).

June 15: Society of Plastics Engineers, Ontario section, annual golf tournament. At Station Creek and Rolling Hills Golf Courses. (Contact: Andrew Young at 416-259-2682 or amarshal@romark.ca, or Eric Yeung at 905-738-0627 eric.yeung@capableplastic.com)

June 27 and 28: Atlantic Canada Plastics Industry Symposium, with the theme Molding the Economy. At Rocky Harbour, Nfld. (Contact: Centre for Plastics Development, 709-686-2078 or venture.centre@nf.sympatico.ca).

October 24-31: K 2007, Germany's international plastics super-show, at Dusseldorf Trade Fairgrounds. (Contact: Stefan Egge at 416-598-1524 or messeduesseldorf@germanchamber.ca)

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Screw design – the quest for the perfect spiral
Injection moulding of micro parts
Extrusion report – Innovations in blown film
Spotlight on Granulators & Shredders
Raw materials report
Processor profile

Closing: May 23

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