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On the Farm: Agrochemical Packaging

Posted: August 2, 2012
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Plastic packaging is increasingly being designed to do more than simply house products. This is especially the case when those products are agricultural chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizer, which can be harmful to users and the wider environment if not stored and applied properly.
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Brazil’s Plastics Industry: Is Now Its Time?

Posted: July 13, 2012
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This economic growth in Brazil has been many years in the making. The country, which has the fifth largest population globally (exceeding 200 million), has been politically and economically stable for nearly a decade. Recently, the government has made a concerted effort to bring its people out of poverty and into the middle class.
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Plastics Are the Big Winner in Sports: Diverse polymers enhance performance and aesthetics of numerous applications.

Posted: July 10, 2012
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The sports market is making greater use of advanced materials and designs to create equipment, stadium structures, and artificial playing surfaces that meet evolving performance, aesthetic, and environmental needs.
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Browse Features

On the Farm: Agrochemical Packaging

Posted: August 2, 2012
in

Plastic packaging is increasingly being designed to do more than simply house products. This is especially the case when those products are agricultural chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizer, which can be harmful to users and the wider environment if not stored and applied properly.
Read more

Brazil’s Plastics Industry: Is Now Its Time?

Posted: July 13, 2012
in

This economic growth in Brazil has been many years in the making. The country, which has the fifth largest population globally (exceeding 200 million), has been politically and economically stable for nearly a decade. Recently, the government has made a concerted effort to bring its people out of poverty and into the middle class.
Read more

Plastics Are the Big Winner in Sports: Diverse polymers enhance performance and aesthetics of numerous applications.

Posted: July 10, 2012
in

The sports market is making greater use of advanced materials and designs to create equipment, stadium structures, and artificial playing surfaces that meet evolving performance, aesthetic, and environmental needs.
Read more

Sneak Peek at May 2012

Posted: April 27, 2012
in

It started eight years ago as a dinner at the annual midwinter meeting of the Philadelphia Section of the Society of Plastics Engineers, to which members often brought children. Section member Tom Twardowski, a professor of chemical engineering at Manhattan College and tireless plastics educator, put on a magic show about plastics as part of the program. The Dr. T. Show, as it was called, became an annual event with a different topic each year (Plastics in Sports; Plastic Nanotechnology; Bioplastics). Attendance grew beyond SPE. The North Light Community Center in Manayunk, part of Philadelphia, sent vans full of teenagers just to see the show.
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NPE 2012 preview

Posted: March 29, 2012
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A notable uptick in many segments of the plastics industry will be well reflected by a big turnout for NPE2012, which will once again be held concurrently with ANTEC 2012 in Orlando in April.

More than 2,000 companies and 75,000 attendees from 120 countries are expected to converge on NPE2012, being held in Central Florida after 40 years in Chicago. In conjunction with ANTEC 2012, the world’s largest plastics technical conference, the 27th NPE promises to showcase more equipment than ever. In conjunction with ANTEC 2012 and the Business of Plastics Conference, NPE makes it easy for attendees to investigate innovations in the packaging, medical and pharmaceutical, automotive/transportation, housing, and consumer sectors.

In its 75th year, SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, promises a special flourish with NPE2012 in its new venue.
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Warm up for ANTEC® 2012: The ANTEC@NPE2012 spring event promises a massive surge of information and contacts

Posted: March 1, 2012
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ANTEC comes a bit early in 2012 – in the first week of April – being co-located again with NPE, this time in Florida. Luckily for those of us fighting the early-spring blahs, we can look forward to Orlando’s average high temperature for April 1st of about 78°F (26°C). And we can expect to see and hear about a lot of new technologies and products, some of them literally hot off the presses in the NPE exhibition halls.

This article attempts to preview the large number of ANTEC paper presentations and events, plus a sampling of NPE events and new product releases. (Note that all information below was current as of press time in early January.)

 
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Building Blocks

Posted: January 4, 2012
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*From the September 2011 issue of Plastics Engineering

New and enhanced plastics are vital to underhood performance

By Pat Toensmeier

Underhood parts are breaking ground in dynamic and demanding applications, creating sizeable opportunities in coming years for engineering thermoplastics and thermosets.

 

Factors driving developments include greater efforts by auto OEMs to reduce vehicle weight through metal replacement and part consolidation, the need to lower component cost, and rising standards for fuel consumption, heat resistance, durability and dimensional stability. In some cases the ability of plastics to provide sustainability—i.e., green design—will be a factor.

 

Applications that are emerging for underhood (which in this report includes powertrain and chassis components) read like a checklist of engineered and structural parts. Notable are oil pans, fan shrouds and cooling systems; engine, valve and timing-chain covers; fully integrated oil modules; thermostat housings; electric throttle bodies; transmission seals, thrust washers and bearing cages; engine mounts and transmission cross beams. For hybrid-electric and electric vehicles, battery pack and recharging components and high-voltage connectors are on the list.
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