TU/e Researchers Succeed in Creating Plastic that Emits Light When Pulled

Scientists at TU/e for the first time succeeded in creating a plastic that emits light when pulled. The researchers can make the plastic emit red, yellow, blue and green light. The results were published online in Nature Chemistry this week.

The researchers incorporate an additional element in the plastic molecules, a molecular ring called dioxetane. When the plastic is pulled hard enough, the ring breaks open and emits light.The plastic only gives light as long as it is pulled. When the plastic is completely torn apart, a flash of light is seen because a lot of molecular rings break at the same time.

Tensile strength:The research has mainly been driven by fundamental scientific questions. The researchers were looking for possibilities of mechanical forces to unlock new types of chemistry, says Professor of Supramolecular Polymer Chemistry Rint Sijbesma.However, he does see a very suitable application of the invention. The transmitted light makes it possible to very accurately see where, when and how polymers break. In this way the collapse behavior of polymers can be studied in detail.

Luminous rods are different:The principle is quite different, by the way, from that of the luminous rods that are used at concerts, et cetera. When these rods are bent and broken inside, two liquids mix, creating a new chemical substance. This material starts to fall apart spontaneously, at the same time emitting light.

DSM's TeXtreme® Carbon Fabric with Turane Resins Finds Application in Olympic Rowing Boat

DSM has been working with the Dutch Olympic Team, applying their material expertise in order to make the best rowing boat possible for the London Olympics 2012. To achieve this they turned to TeXtreme® Spread Tow Fabrics as the choice of carbon reinforcement. The result is a faster boat as a direct consequence of reduced weight and increased stiffness.

Edwin Hendriks, Project Manager Building, Infrastructure and Sport at DSM comments: "To improve the performance of the Dutch Olympic rowing boat, we used TeXtreme® carbon fabric in combination with DSM's styrene-free Turane resins. The interaction between these two is exceptionally strong. This resulted in an increased rigidity (25% more stiffness) and a lower weight of the boat, allowing for a different construction that increased the stiffness even more. The new boat deforms less in the water at every powerful stroke of the rowers, and as such can better maintain its speed."

In the months leading up to London 2012, DSM applied their expertise in materials on improving the boats for the Dutch rowing teams. DSM cooperated with the Dutch Rowing Federation and the Olympic Team Netherlands in developing this special eight man rowing boat "Olympic eight".

Clearly one of the key elements of any rowing race is having the best boat, it is a vital component for any crew with ambitions. Building on their experience from previous Olympic innovations such as the 470-class sailing boat for Beijing 2008, DSM partnered with German boat builder Empacher. By using each other's strengths together with the unique mechanical properties of TeXtreme®, they developed the best boat possible.

Using DSMs Turane resins, one important goal was to improve the stiffness of the boat, making it better equipped to handle the rigors of a race. By combining it with TeXtreme® Spread Tow carbon fiber fabrics the stiffness of the hull has been increased up to 25%, reducing the energy loss of each stroke and thus increasing the speed.

The increased stiffness reduces the amount of energy that gets lost due to deformation of the hull, a common issue in the sport as the boats are not fully capable of withstanding the enormous amount of force unleashed by the crew during every single stroke. Reducing the deformation of the hull means that the crew can better build up and maintain speed.

Gucci Launches Eco-friendly, Sustainable Soles Made of Biodegradable Plastics

Gucci is pleased to announce the launch of Sustainable Soles, a special edition of eco-friendly women's and men's shoes designed by Creative Director Frida Giannini and part of the Prefall 2012 Collection. This new project conveys the House's mission to interpret in a responsible way the modern consumer's desire for sustainable fashion products, all the while maintaining the balance between the timeless values of style and utmost quality with an ever-growing green vision.

The Sustainable Soles include the Marola Green ballerinas for her and the California Green sneakers for him, both realized in bio-plastic — a biodegradable material in compost used as an alternative to petrochemical plastic.

Use of Lightweight Plastics in EVs Will Drive Penetration Rates & Growth, Forecasts Frost & Sullivan

With the electric vehicle (EV) production set to grow at a CAGR of over 80 per cent until 2017, plastics used in these vehicles will also see a tremendous growth. The need to increase EV mile range, paralleled by the inherent advantages of plastics — particularly that of lightweight — will drive penetration rates.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Strategic Analysis of Plastics in the Electric Vehicles Market in Europe and North America, finds that the market earned revenues of $ 0.5 million in 2010 and estimates this to reach $ 73 million in 2017. The research covers power train plastics, battery casing plastics, thermal management system materials and wire and cable plastic materials.

As the electric vehicles market takes off, it is set to have a positive ripple effect on the uptake of plastics.

"Plastics for EVs are driven by light weighting trends which, in turn, are fuelled by the need to improve EV mile range," notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Shree Vidhyaa Karunanidhi. "EVs are typically characterized by huge batteries which add to the overall weight of the vehicle and affect the mile range. To compensate for the battery weight, metals are increasingly being substituted by plastic."

Important structural components such as gears and motors are made of metal. Strength and crash-resistance requirements indicate that metals will remain the preferred material for these applications. However, plastics have huge potential in some of the minor, non-moving components such as energy recovery devices, cooling pipes, pumps, fans, casing materials.

The current level of penetration of plastics in these components varies. In the case of cooling pipes and fans, plastics are preferred, whereas for other components such as energy recovery devices (pedal and pump) and casing materials, plastics have low to moderate penetration. The inherent features of plastics are, nonetheless, set to push their rapid growth rate in these segments.

"The reduced scope for plastics in EVs in comparison to conventional, gasoline-fuelled vehicles poses a major restraint to market prospects," cautions Shree Vidhyaa. "EU end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycling legislation, which entails the use of recyclable materials, poses another challenge to market participants."

Although thermoplastics used in these cars are recyclable, automotive shredders are typically made up of different type of plastics. These need to be sorted out before they are recyclable.

Therefore, on the one hand there is a need to lightweight cars to improve the mile range in EVs. On the other hand, ELV recycling legislation requires the OEMs to use recyclable materials.

"This issue can be solved if OEMs work with tier-1 suppliers to develop recycling technologies," advises Shree Vidhyaa. "This will ensure sustainable use of plastics in the long-term."

Strategic Analysis of Plastics in the Electric Vehicles Market in Europe and North America is part of the Chemicals & Materials Growth Partnership Service programme, which also includes research in the following markets: Supply Chain Analysis of the Automotive Carbon Fiber Composites Market and Prevalent Substitution Trends within Materials and Chemicals in Automotive Light weighting. All research included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

Umeco’s Structural materials operations in Derby and Manchester – UK have been awarded certification to AS9100C.

David Bernard, Managing Director Umeco Structural Materials – Europe, said: “The overall objective of AS9100C, the aerospace best practice standard, is to maintain and improve product quality and on-time delivery, and recommends following the quality tools routinely used for the automotive standard ISO TS 16949.”

Compliance to AS9100 Rev C confirms strong management and commitment to quality improvement within Umeco while serving its Aviation, Space and Defence customers. Customers in other sectors are guaranteed comparable quality assurance through accreditation to associated standards and certification.  AS9100 Rev C introduces additional requirements, including: addressing project management; ensuring the product realisation process is planned and managed in a structured and controlled way; formally addressing risk management process; documenting process control to identify and address special requirements, critical items, and key characteristics; measuring on-time delivery and product quality; and ensuring appropriate actions are taken if the planned objectives are not achieved.

Global PVC Market to Boost Steadily in Upcoming Years, Forecast Ceresana Research

Ceresana Research expects the global PVC market to reach revenues of more than US$65 billion in 2019. Now that the global recession has ended, the construction industry will again boost demand for PVC. The average annual growth rate of 3.3% seen in the past eight years is likely to be surpassed in future. Ceresana Research forecasts PVC demand to increase at an average annual rate of 3.9% over the next years.

With a roughly 53% share of global consumption, Asia-Pacific is the largest PVC outlet, followed by North America and Western Europe. Shares in demand of the individual world regions will shift significantly over the next eight years. The analysts from Ceresana forecast countries in Asia-Pacific to increase their shares in the global PVC market — mainly at the expense of industrial countries. In contrast, emerging and developing countries will benefit from an increasing per-capita consumption of plastic products. In addition, the construction industry is boosting in these countries, where many PVC products are used in civil and structural engineering.

Changes in regional demand will also have an effect on the production structure of manufacturers. The global PVC capacity of approximately 50 million tones is anticipated to be expanded by 13 million tons by 2019. Almost 80% of these new capacities will be built in the Asia-Pacific region.

The most comprehensive report worldwide analyzes how PVC use will develop in individual markets. Most important buyers include manufacturers of pipes and con-duits; they accounted for 39% of global PVC demand in 2011. PVC plastic profiles accounted for just less than 20%. Films and sheets had an 18% share. Cables and cable sheathing made up 7% of global PVC demand in 2011. Flooring had a 4% share during that year. Other industrial applications, such as coatings for the automotive industry, medical products like infusion bags as well as shoes, accounted for approximately 13% of worldwide demand.

All application areas will see similar development in demand over the upcoming eight years. As a result, shares of the individual application areas will hardly shift by 2019. Pipes and conduits will see the smallest increase in demand of 3.7% per year. However, this sector will remain the largest PVC market by 2019.

Siemens Develops Green Composite Material as an Alternate to ABS Used for Consumer Products

In cooperation with various project partners, Siemens researchers have developed a new recipe for plastic made primarily of renewable resources and CO₂. The new material is an alternative to standard polystyrene-based acrylonitrite-butadiene-styrene (ABS) polymer. The new polymer is much "greener" than ABS even though the physical properties of the two materials are similar. In order to demonstrate how practical the new polymer is, scientists used it to create a vacuum cleaner cover. The new material is the result of a three-year project on research into CO₂ as an ingredient for polymers. The project, which was recently completed, was funded by the German Research Ministry.

Until now, plastic has mostly been made from fossil fuels such as natural gas or oil. However, according to experts, plastic will increasingly be made of renewable raw materials in order to improve its environmental performance and conserve resources. Many of these organic polymers are already available on the market, where they are used for food packaging, for example. Their properties do not fully match those of technical polymers, which is why they sometimes have to be optimized in line with the application in question.

In cooperation with project partners from BASF, Munich Technical University, and the University of Hamburg, scientists at Siemens' global research unit Corporate Technology developed an alternative for the standard polymer ABS, which is frequently used for consumer products. The new composite material is a competitive alternative to ABS. It is a mixture containing poly-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), which is made from renewable raw materials such as palm oil and starch. Since PHB is brittle, polypropylene carbonate (PPC) from BASF is added to make it softer. PPC consists of 43 percent carbon dioxide (by weight), which is obtained from power plant emissions using a separation process. In addition to being transparent, biodegradable, and resistant to light, PPC can be easily processed.

More than 70 percent of the new mixture is made of green polymers. The new material is a suitable alternative for ABS in practice, as demonstrated by Bosch-Siemens-Hausgeräte (BSH), which used it to make a vacuum cleaner cover under series-production conditions. In cooperation with BSH and BASF, the Siemens researchers now want to examine whether they can replace other types of plastic used by BSH with CO₂-based composite materials.