‘Convenience' food packaging changed our lives

Recloseable packaging and microwaveable plastic trays were named top packaging breakthroughs that most impacted peoples' lives over the last 25 years in an on-line survey hosted by DuPont. Together the two categories of invention captured 48 percent of the votes. The online survey was available to industry professionals from Apr. 9 through May 10, 2013.

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Chemtura Announces Expansion of Its Urethanes Business into High-Performance Thermoplastic Polyurethane Products

Chemtura Corporation (NYSE/EuroNext Paris: CHMT), a world leader in hot-cast urethane pre-polymers, today announced the launch of its thermoplastic polyurethane product line under the Ultralast™ brand.

 “The unique formulation of our Ultralast Thermoplastic Urethanes allows plastic manufacturers to achieve superior performance by utilizing Chemtura’s cast urethanes technology,” said Matthew Hellstern, president and general manager of the Urethanes business.

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Chinaplas: Invista secures site for China polyamide 6,6 plant

Leading polyamide supplier Invista (Wichita, KS) has signed a Land Reservation Agreement with the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park Development Company for a polyamide 6,6 resin site at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP).

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Conair mulls how it will manufacture products in Brazil

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL — Auxiliary equipment producer Conair Group, which has sold and serviced machinery in Brazil since 1976 but has no local manufacturing or sales presence, is eyeing Brazilian expansion that could include more service technicians, and a new office with sales staff.

The company is also actively exploring whether to do a manufacturing partnership in Brazil — like it has done in India — or to build its own manufacturing facility, like Conair has in C...

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Borealis Announces a Q1 Net Profit of €61 Million

Borealis, a provider of solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers, announces a net profit of €61 million compared to €140 million in the same quarter in 2012.

The decrease in net profit was a result of lower sales volumes and profits in its joint venture, Borouge, due to a planned turnaround for routine maintenance, as well as soft market conditions for the European Polyolefins business.

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BASF offers new variants of compostable plastic Ecovio

Germany-based chemicals company BASF has extended its compostable and partially bio-based Ecovio range of plastics with new grades suited to thermoforming and injection moulding.

BASF’s Ecovio T2308 grade exhibits similar mechanical properties to those of amorphous PET, and will now be available for the production of thermoformed trays and cups.

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Lanxess plans Ningbo red pigments plant

Lanxess’s Inorganic Pigments business unit is to build a new high-tech facility for premium iron oxide red pigments at the Ningbo Chemical Park, in eastern China’s Zhegiang province. The €55 million plant will create 150 new jobs and will have an initial capacity of 25,000 tonnes/year. Construction will begin in Q2 for start-up in Q1 2015.

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UK households studied for recycling habits

Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) is monitoring 10 UK households for the next six months in order to build up a picture of the nation’s domestic recycling habits.

The ‘Recycle for the Future’ study, conducted with Exeter University, will try to find out why UK at-home recycling rates are below the European average, despite consumers claiming they wanted to recycle.

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BioAmber raises $80m in stock offer

US sustainable chemical maker BioAmber raised $80m (£53m) following an initial public offering (IPO) of its stock on 10 May.

However the firm already is getting a taste of life as a public company, seeing its share price fall from $10 (£6.60) to $8 (£5.30) in its first week of trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Next Generation Films Expanding Plant Adding Blown Film Capacity from Windmoeller & Hoelscher

LINCOLN, RI – Next Generation Films (Next), based in Lexington, OH, has ordered another 3-layer blown film line from Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corporation.

The 3-layer VAREX has a 134” working width, grooved feed extruders (105.30/135.30/105.30D), OPTIFIL P3 gauge control system, OPTICOOL high output air ring and a 35.43” MAXICONE C die.

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Bayer – 150 and still full of vitality

Bayer celebrated its 150-year anniversary with a three-day interactive exhibition based on its slogan ‘Science For A Better Life’.

The event, hosted at London’s Science Museum, was attended by the company’s customers and suppliers, medical and trade associations, parliamentarians, teachers and school children.

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Milliken Files Lawsuits to Halt Intellectual Property Infringement

Ghent, Belgium - Milliken & Company today announced it has filed several lawsuits to protect the intellectual property embodied in its Millad® clarifying agents.

The company is taking vigorous action against several companies that Milliken believes have infringed one or more of Milliken's patents through the sale of competitive 3,4 DMDBS products.

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Harvard, MIT Researchers Design 3D Printed, Self-Assembling Robots

Researchers from MIT and Harvard University have teamed up to design a 3D printed robot that can crawl like an inchworm and can assemble itself when given a jolt of electricity.

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Housewares molder RCTenn expanding

GALLATIN, TENN. — Custom injection molder RCTenn LLC will spend $1.3 million to expand in Gallatin, adding equipment, floor space and employees.

The firm has several new contracts to support the expansion, said RCTenn President Rob Coleman. The bulk of its business is in housewares. It molds toolboxes for Stanley Black & Decker Inc., storage containers, pet-care items and other products.

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Nucleated polypropylene homopolymer targets thermoforming

A nucleating agent has helped push homopolymer polypropylene (PP) into thermoformed packaging applications with the promise of better haze and less yellowing compared to conventional nucleated PP homopolymers.

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Green EnviroTech, ACG Consulting Sign Letter of Intent

Green EnviroTech Holdings (www.greenenvirotech.com), Riverbank, Calif., and ACG Consulting, St. Louis, have signed a letter of intent (LoI) to form a joint venture limited liability company for the purpose of owning and developing shredder residue recycling plants.

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The artsy side of 3-D printing

Three-D printing technology is a game changer in the arts and crafts world. “It really takes the lid off of what's possible,” said Andrej Suskavcevic, president and CEO of the Craft and Hobby Association, in Elmwood Park, N.J. “It seems to me it'll provide a really good bridge between technology and hands-on crafting.”

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DuPont Packaging Awards celebrate how packaging adds value

DuPont celebrated the silver anniversary of its global packaging awards program Thurs. night, May 16, granting top honors to U.K.-based design firm pi 3 for AidPod, which delivers life-saving medicine to remote sub-Saharan villages. This unique packaging and distribution program captured the premier Diamond and the Special 25th Anniversary "Food Security" award.

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Home heatlhcare is driving medical plastics innovations

The drive to reduce medical costs in the United States is triggering more patient care in their homes, where costs are lower and there are reduced risks to acquire potentially deadly infections, such as MRSA and other penicillin-resistant bacteria.

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