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Various topics related to sustainability in plastics, including bio-related, environmental issues, green, recycling, renewal, re-use and sustainability.
Splay is a primary source of fallout when injection molding parts using polycarbonate. Elimination of splay is a difficult proposition, but maintaining acceptable baseline fallout across production is crucial to keeping waste under control and shipment of defects to customer to a minimum. Overall splay was reduced from 1.8 to 0.9 percent on parts running in excess of 1.4 million annually. The analysis provided in this paper shows how the extent of splay waste was identified, root cause analysis conducted, corrective action implemented, and results verified for one source of polycarbonate splay in a production environment.
Among the many environmental problems which mankind faces in the XXI century is the problem of environmental sustainability and management of the tremendous amount of generated polymer waste. Among various polymer wastes, management of crosslinked plastics is a major environmental problem requiring a solution. This study was specifically directed toward the creation of a new, environmentally friendly and science-based technology for the recycling of crosslinked plastics. Uncrosslinked thermoplastics can be easily reprocessed and reused. However, managing crosslinked plastics is a very challenging problem. This is due to the presence of a three-dimensional network, which prevents flow and shaping of crosslinked plastics upon heating and shearing. Our laboratory developed ultrasonic decrosslinking technology for recycling of the crosslinked high density polyethylene (XHDPE) of different levels of crosslink densities and crosslinked LDPE (XLDPE). This is done by using ultrasonically aided single-screw extruder (SSE) operating at a frequency of 20 kHz and twinscrew extruder (TSE) operating at a frequency of 40 kHz at different levels of ultrasonic energy [1]. The experimental studies on the ultrasonic decrosslinking of XHDPE and XLDPE have shown that the ultrasonic extrusion was capable to preferentially break crosslinks rather than main chains in XHDPE. Significant reduction of the extruder torque, die and barrel pressures with the ultrasonic amplitude was observed during decrosslinking of XHDPE and XLDPE. The specific ultrasonic energy decreased with the flow rate and increased with the ultrasonic amplitude, while die pressure increased with the flow rate and decreased with the ultrasonic amplitude [2-5]. Accordingly, application of ultrasonic treatment during extrusion enabled an increase of productivity.
Thin film packaging is used for a wide range of products including packaging of food, medical tools, electronics, and toys. Each of these applications requires a different type of film, from thin and brittle, to composite film including a foil layer, to biodegradable films. These films can be adhesively bonded, heat sealed, impulse welded, and increasingly, ultrasonically welded. Ultrasonic welding offers many benefits to thin film sealing such as faster cycle times, reduction in film usage due to narrower bond widths, elimination of adhesive layers, improved hermeticity for increased shelf life, and less sensitivity to contaminants in the seal area. However, tool design can have a significant effect on weld strength. Optimum tool design depends not just on the thickness of the material to be welded, but also the type of polymer to be joined, and seal requirements (such as hermeticity and peel strength). In this study, we seek to provide starting guidelines with the goal of lowering the cost and duration of the tooling development process by investigating the achievable peel strength of a wide variety of film types with twenty-five horn and anvil design combinations.
Fakhruddin Patwary, Nadejda Matsko, Vikas Mittal, April 2016
Soil burial tests, conducted under natural conditions, were used to investigate the biodegradability of bio-nanocomposites containing silica, silicate, and graphene reinforcements.
Using an industrial waste as an inorganic filler in plastic/wood composites improves the fire and mechanical properties of the material, as well as reducing its financial and environmental cost.
Grafting polystyrene onto wood cell walls improves the interfacial compatibility between polymer and wood, and thus gives rise to better mechanical and hydrophobic properties.
Vimal Katiyar , Amit Kumar, Umesh Bhardwaj, Prodyut Dhar, February 2016
Cellulose nanocrystals are used to fabricate novel biodegradable nanocomposites that exhibit reduced oxygen permeability, as well as improved tensile and rheological characteristics.
Umit Tayfun , Erdal Bayramli, Mehmet Dogan, February 2016
An isocyanate surface treatment of flax fibers produces improved interfacial interactions of the fibers with the polymer matrix, and thus stronger eco-composites.
Emilia Garofalo , Loredana Incarnato, Luciano Di Maio, Paola Scarfato, February 2016
An in-depth study of polylactide nanocomposite molecular characteristics demonstrates that selecting appropriate organoclays for each polylactide grade is a key issue.
Leif Steuernagel, Dieter Meiners, Gerhard Ziegmann, Ahmed El-Sabbagh , Oliver Toepfer, January 2016
Aluminum trihydroxide can be used with compounded flax and polypropylene to increase flame retardance behavior, but without reducing mechanical properties.
Mechanical treatment, with the use of a Supermasscolloider, of sugar cane bagasse significantly improves the mechanical and thermal characteristics of composites made with this material.
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Any article that is cited in another manuscript or other work is required to use the correct reference style. Below is an example of the reference style for SPE articles:
Brown, H. L. and Jones, D. H. 2016, May.
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ANTEC 2016 - Indianapolis, Indiana, USA May 23-25, 2016. [On-line].
Society of Plastics Engineers
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