NO TUITION FEES! - Join the MSc in Biofabrication in Germany!

Dear groups members, 

If you have been looking for an opportunity to study your MSc in Germany, this is your best chance! 

As the blog owner, I would like to personally invite all of you to join a webinar, taking place in April 25, about a MSc in Biofabrication at the Bayreuth University, in Germany. As an international student, you won't have to pay any tuition fees for the programme. Read more: https://bit.ly/2J1HSRa 

This is a great opportunity for those members who are interested in kickstart their careers with an state of art Master’s of Science in Biofabrication, the emerging technology currently shaping the future of Medical Engineering. I highly recommend anyone to join. Register now and don't miss this opportunity of studying for free in Germany. We have limited places: https://bit.ly/2J1HSRa 

Thank you and see you online on the webinar!

Kind regards,

Muthuramalingam Krishnan 

Nestlé Pledges to Make All its Packaging Recyclable & Re-usable by 2025

Nestlé has recently announced its ambition to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or re-usable by 2025. Its vision is that none of its packaging, including plastics, ends up in landfill or as litter. Nestlé believes that there is an urgent need to minimize the impact of packaging on the environment.

Aiming 100% Sustainable Packaging

Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider said:
"Plastic waste is one of the biggest sustainability issues the world is facing today. Tackling it requires a collective approach. We are committed to finding improved solutions to reduce, re-use and recycle. Our ambition is to achieve 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025."

The company focuses on three core areas: 
Eliminate non-recyclable plastics
Encourage the use of plastics that allow better recycling rates
Eliminate or change complex combinations of packaging materials

Need of Circular Economy

Recognizing the need for developing a circular economy, Nestlé is committed to:
Playing an active role in the development of well-functioning collection, sorting and recycling schemes across the countries where we operate;
Working with value chain partners and industry associations to explore different packaging solutions to reduce plastic usage, facilitate recycling and develop new approaches to eliminate plastic waste;
Labeling our plastic product packaging with recycling information to help consumers dispose of it in the right way;
Promoting a market for recycled plastics by continuing to increase the proportion of recycled plastics in our packaging

Preventing packaging material ending up as waste, including in seas, oceans and waterways is one of the key reasons behind Nestlé’s pledge.

Source: Nestlé

Lightweight carbon fiber rail bogie frame wins JEC 2018 Composites Awards in Paris

The recycled carbon fiber bogies will now undergo extensive tests on the Institute of Railway Research £3.5 million test rig at the University of Huddersfield

RAIL vehicle bogies made from recycled carbon fibre could lead to major savings for operators, with a 50 per cent reduction in weight meaning a huge reduction in track wear and energy and maintenance costs. Now, a research team at the University of Huddersfield will carry out exhaustive tests to ensure that the concept can fulfil its potential.

The University is home to the Institute of Railway Research (IRR). It has joined a consortium that includes ELG Carbon Fibre Ltd, which has developed cost-effective means of recovering carbon fibres from manufacturing waste and end-of-life components, and Alstom Transport, a rolling stock vehicle manufacturer and maintainer and the Sensors and Composites Group, University of Birmingham. The consortium chose Magma Structures as their preferred manufacturer. Magma has produced carbon composite masts for some of the world's largest superyachts and specialised carbon pipes for the highly-regulated offshore industry.

The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) launched a vehicle dynamics competition, and the optimised lightweight carbon fibre bogie frame project was a winner, so that £1.25m of funding was made available to design and manufacture a prototype bogie for a rail passenger vehicle. The University of Huddersfield's IRR helped with its specification and it will be constructed by Magma using recycled carbon fibres from ELG.

It will then be tested by the IRR in the first half of 2019, using its sector-leading facility named HAROLD (Huddersfield Adhesion and Rolling contact Laboratory Dynamics rig). The process will take several months and will include a fatigue test consisting of a million simulated load cycles.

"This is the first time that recycled fibres have been used for a bogie frame," said the Institute's David Crosbee, a rail vehicle dynamics expert who will be lead engineer for the test phase of the project.

The use of carbon fibre as opposed to steel will have advantages that include reduced maintenance costs and weight reduction, meaning lower track access charges, he added.

"We will be characterising the frame's stiffness and using the results of our tests to validate the design" said Mr Crosbee.

"The process will culminate in a full bogie assembly running on the Institute's roller rig and we will finish with some dynamic testing."

Other potential benefits of carbon fibre are also being investigated. The team from the Sensors and Composites Group based at University of Birmingham will be installing fibre optic strain/temperature sensors into the carbon fibre structure of the bogie, providing embedded condition monitoring.

The optimised lightweight carbon fibre bogie frame project has been named winner of the rail category in JEC 2018 Composites Awards in Paris. Magma Structures Technical Director Damon Roberts accepted the award on behalf of the consortium and said: "Rail operators are seeking to reduce costs associated with track damage, and the time and financial burden of regularly maintaining train carriage bogies and suspension units. The use of recycled carbon fibre is a key aspect of this design, and not only helps to make composite material solutions an attractive choice, but brings the benefit of reducing waste. The frame has benefits including weight reduction of at least 50% and reduced track wear and maintenance. High-volume manufacturing techniques are used to reduce the overall cost of the composite solution."

Recycled-to-Virgin Plastics & 1st PHA Bioplastic Symposium; New York, JUNE 25-28

Reincarnation/Re-Birth of polymers & plastics is a revolution underway taking the environmental & sustainability efforts to all-time new heights, thereby leading to preservation of petroleum resources, reduction of air-land-ocean pollution, and utilization of free/undesirable raw materials. Highlights of the subject conference are: 
…………………………………………………
(1) BIO-SOURCED Raw-Materials as an offset to Petroleum for Polymers & Plastics
…………………………………………………..
(2) RECYCLED Plastics as a resource for High-Quality Plastics & other Applications. 
……………………………………………………
(3) NETWORKING: As of now, there are representatives from 14 countries and Brand-Owners such as PEPSICO, PROCTER & GAMBLE, and ITALERI will be speaking on their leading role in supporting PHA Bioplastic & Recycling.

Register for the Conference via (973) 801-6212 or preferably on our website @
http://innoplastsolutions.com/bio.html
…………………………………………………………………………………………

Polymer Problem Solving Course
Polymer Failure & Defects: $MM Problem Solving Case-Histories, Atlanta, OCT 2-4

Does your company wants to enter your products into Asian market under my marketing strategy?

You can write to me at rosaram211@gmail.com to have further discussion on your products.

I have proven track record on introducing products into asian market already.
Based on your product line,i will do market analysis in the Asian countries and then i will submit the report to you with my suggestion.Within 6 months of time ,your product will be introduced into Asian market provided if you are very keen on my service and its package.

New plastic composite materials for 3D printing

3D printing company EOS is now offering European distribution of three polymers for additive manufacturing (AM) from ALM, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company.

The following fiber reinforced materials are now available:

ALM HP 11-30, a carbon fiber-reinforced polyamide 11 material with high strength, impact resistance, and an increased elongation at breakThe material is suitable for components subject to mechanical wear that require a minimum level of toughness, including automotive industry applications, particularly for motorsport. 

ALM PA 640-GSL, a polyamide 12 material filled with lightweight glass microspheres, providing practically the same properties as a normal glass filled polyamide, but with reduced weight (component density: 0.82g/cm³). With a microsphere and carbon fiber filling, ALM PA 640-GSL is suitable for applications that require extremely low weight, high strength, and rigidity in one product. It also features increased thermal resistance and improved surface quality. Application fields include the aerospace, shipping, sports, model making, and motorsport sectors.

ALM FR-106, a flame-retardant polyamide 11 suitable for use in the aerospace industry, is also available.

New polymer nanoparticle shows potential to find and kill breast cancer cells

One major problem in treating cancer is identifying the location of small tumors and treating them before they metastasize.

In an effort to overcome that problem, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have developed a fluorescing nanoparticle capable of finding tumors, lighting up upon arrival and being activated with light to generate heat to destroy the cancer cells.

A study in which these nanoparticles – Hybrid Donor-Acceptor Polymer Particles, or H-DAPPs – successfully located and killed breast cancer skills in mice is published in the current issue of the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

"An unexpected result was how efficiently the nanoparticles localized to the tumors without any targeting agent," said the study's lead author, Nicole Levi-Polyachenko, Ph.D., associate professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist. "Achieving high enough levels of H-DAPPs within the tumor to allow it to be seen provides an advantage for knowing exactly where light should be applied to generate heat and kill the cancer cells."

Other investigators have developed nanoparticles to detect tumors or carry drugs, and Levi-Polyachenko's team has created polymers that strongly absorb infrared light and generate heat. Regarding the new nanoparticle, she said, "It was exciting to figure out the step for combining a heat-generating polymer with a light-emitting polymer to allow for detection and on-demand heat treatment."

H-DAPPs are made of electrically conductive polymers and are smaller than 100 nanometers (0.00000393701 of an inch) in diameter. Their small size and soft composition makes it easy for them to travel through the bloodstream to the tumor.

"There is much more research needed to ensure that H-DAPPs can safely be used in humans," Levi-Polyachenko said. "But we are enthusiastic about exploring the use of H-DAPPs with other cancer types and eventually in patients."