polymerguru

To showcase its products developed using renewable raw materials and to strengthen its presence in the Japanese market, Braskem participated in Tokyo Pack. Braskem is the largest thermoplastic resin producer in the Americas, with annual production volume of over 20 million tons, which includes chemical products and basic petrochemicals. World's First Biobased Polyethylene  In its debut at the event, the company welcomed visitors to its booth displaying products such as I'm green™ plastic, which is the world's first biobased polyethylene produced on an industrial scale, and I'm green™ EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate), which also is made from sugarcane. " Asia has become an important market for us, especially in businesses involving Green PE, and Tokyo Pack is the perfect opportunity to consolidate our presence in the packaging industry. We will take the opportunity to introduce to the local public our latest developments in biobased resins and ou...

Hexagon Composites ASA has moved to acquire the technology testing company Digital Wave Corporation, based in Denver, Colorado. With this acquisition, Hexagon Composites will fully integrate capabilities for testing and requalification of high-pressure cylinders. “Hexagon has worked successfully with Digital Wave for three years to apply Modal Acoustic Emissions (MAE) technology to test Type 4 cylinders. With this acquisition we take control of the unique testing process, which effectively reduces the operators’ down time, while ensuring an approved, safe and reliable requalification method. We are further enhancing our leadership position by obtaining the most advanced capabilities and technology currently available,” said Jack Schimenti, Executive Vice President of Hexagon Composites Group. “We believe that this technology has the potential of fulfilling the holy grail of real-time health monitoring of composite cylinders.” Digital Wave is a leading provider of...

Luna Yu, a recent graduate from the Master of Environmental Science program at University of Toronto Scarborough teams up with a talented group of scientists and engineers — many of whom are U of T students or alum — to form Genecis . The company uses recent advancements in biotechnology, microbial engineering and machine learning to take food destined for landfill and convert it into high quality, fully biodegradable plastics. Food waste is a significant environmental issue in North America, explains Yu. In the United States roughly 55 million tons of food is thrown away annually. Once that food hits landfill it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In fact, it’s estimated that 34 per cent of methane emissions in the U.S. alone are caused by food waste. Luna Yu said: “We feel that by using synthetic biology create high quality products out of this organic waste in a cost-effective way – while also mitigating the effect...

Composites Evolution, Bercella and Element Materials Technology (Element) have successfully completed the development and testing of a  composite cantilever support for rail passenger seating . Composite Cantilever Seat Support The component, which is 1 meter long but weighs less than 5 kg, passed a wide range of tests performed by Element. The evaluation included static loadings, fatigue cycles and fire testing to EN 45545 according to the requirements of Bercella’s customers. Cantilever seat supports, which are mounted on the wall of a train carriage rather than the floor, offer a number of advantages including improved access for cleaning and luggage storage. The lightweight composite structure also provides advantages in terms of reduced train energy consumption and lower axle loads. Bio-based Evopreg PFC Prepreg The seat support was manufactured by Bercella using Composites Evolution’s Evopreg PFC prepreg with a high strength carbon fiber reinforcement. Evopreg PFC wa...

Hexagon continues delivering firsts to the Mobile Pipeline® market as the first TITAN®53 gas transport module was delivered in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. The TITAN®53 is the result of a rigorous design, development and testing process built on the foundation of the deepest engineering expertise in composite pressure vessel technology in the industry. After nearly a decade of success with TITAN® products, customers are demanding the ability to move greater volumes of compressed gases including natural gas, hydrogen and industrial gases on every trip. The newly developed TITAN®53 cylinders and module optimize weight and capacity to meet the 80,000 lbs (36,300 kg) GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) to allow operation in all 50 US states while delivering an estimated gas volume of 492,000 SCF / 13,932 SCM of natural gas. Hexagon’s TITAN® cylinders are the largest composite cylinders now available. Safety is top priority for development teams, which have deli...

Fused deposition modeling (FDM), often simply referred to as 3D Printing, has been hailed as the future of manufacturing. However, the bad mechanical performance of parts produced by FDM compared to conventionally manufactured objects has limited its use to prototyping. Therefore, despite its promise of mass customization, FDM 3D Printing has not been adopted by industry for production.  Commercial 3D Printing of Complex Parts Researchers at ETH Zürich have developed a bioinspired approach to 3D print recyclable materials using cheap desktop printers that outperform state-of-the-art printed polymers and rival the highest performance lightweight materials.  This will finally enable the manufacturing of complex parts that mimic natural structural designs on the mass market. 3D Printing, particularly FDM, makes it possible to produce unique complex parts quickly and at a low cost by sequentially depositing beads of a molten polymer. However, the available polymers are re...