Strictly-Extrusion

Synventive Molding Solutions, one of the world’s largest designers, manufacturers and suppliers of hot runner systems and related components to the injection molding industry, announces that it has been acquired by Madison Capital Partners, an investment group based in Chicago, USA. Synventive has four manufacturing facilities; one in Peabody, USA, one in s’-Gravendeel, The Netherlands and two in Bensheim, Germany and employs over 600 people worldwide. Synventive has a global network of branch offices that provide sales, engineering and service to customers in more than 30 countries.

Madison has extensive experience in the plastics industry and with this acquisition will further expand its portfolio of companies in the plastics industry.
“It is our objective to buy, build and grow industrial manufacturing companies with a strong reputation, well-recognized brand name and a strong management team,” says Larry Gies, Madison’s president and CEO.

“With Madison as our new partner the long-term continuity and growth of our business is ensured” says Hub Cilissen, president and CEO of Synventive Molding Solutions. “Our vision is to become the injection molding industry’s leading solutions provider of choice and we believe that our new partner will help us to achieve this objective. They recognise and enforce our core strengths, the spirit of the people who embody our organization, and our guiding principles of innovation and commitment to developing strong, long-term customer relationships.”

Synventive is a leader in hot runner technology currently holding 39 patents and has 79 patents applications pending worldwide. Its Dynamic Feed® technology is the only control system in the industry that is able to independently control the rate of filling and packing pressures of each cavity of a (multi-cavity) mold.

Over the past decades, Synventive Molding Solutions and its predecessors (Dynisco HotRunners, Eurotool, Kona) have served customers in the automotive, electronics, telecommunications, packaging, medical, consumer/ industrial and PET industries.

Madison has a proven track record in the plastic molding, plastic machinery and plastic auxiliary equipment industries, enhancing its businesses’ long-term value through an intense focus on the customer and product innovation.

Georg Fischer is to end production of PVC pipe fittings in Italy and transfer manufacturing to its plastics products plant in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The Swiss industrial systems manufacturer is undertaking a major restructuring effort following an unsatisfactory mid-year result and pessimistic forecasts for the economy. The closure will affect 30 employees at Georg Fischer TIL in Genoa. The piping systems group recorded sales of SFr380m (E247m) in the first half of 2003, a 4% decline on the same period last year.

With the ZXQ series Coperion Waeschle GmbH & Co. KG, Weingarten, has developed the first high-pressure blow-through valves in the world for applications in the plastics and chemicals industry. These valves feed powders into pneumatic conveying systems and are suitable for differential pressures of up to 3.5 bar. The new ZXQ rotary valves achieve capacities which are 30 to 60 per cent higher than those reached by conventional valves of the same nominal size, depending on the product and the differential pressure. The reasons:

•The conveying air for product transport flows parallel to the rotary valve axle directly through the lower chambers of the rotor. This results in forced discharge which also ensures that the rotor chambers are fully emptied, even when cohesive powders are conveyed.
•The valve geometry is optimised, especially the ratio of the inlet cross-section to the rotor
volume, and all types of powder are easily fed into the large-dimensioned valve inlet.

This increase in capacity lowers the investment and operating costs of the ZXQ valves, as it is generally possible to install a smaller valve for a set throughput than was previously possible. In addition, the ZXQ valves do not require any rotor seal or locking gas piping in contrast to the discharge valves previously used for high pressures. This enhances functional reliability, lowers maintenance costs and means a further decrease in investment. With this design the inlet into the conveying line is no longer required, reducing the height of the blow-through valves. They are therefore suitable for retrofitting in existing conveying systems and are particularly advantageous if the conveying capacity of the system is to be increased by increasing the pressure.

NDC Infrared Engineering has introduced a new X-ray transmission sensor (Model NDC 312) as a substitute for nucleonic transmission gauges in certain applications where an alternative to the use of radioactive isotopes is required; it also complements the NDC Infrared Engineering sensors in this regard. Targeted for a variety of plastics extrusion and textile applications, the new 312 X-ray transmission sensors can provide better measurement performance than even the best-designed beta gauges, according to the company. The new gauges can be safely installed, operated and serviced with minimal licensing and regulation requirements, they also outperform their nucleonic counterparts in several areas, providing sharper streak detection and spatial resolution, lower statistical noise, lower sensitivity to flutter and sensor registration, as well as providing more precise measurement. The Model 312 gauge is available in two versions: the high resolution 312N, which offers excellent narrow streak resolution; and the ultra-low-noise 312W, which has a wider aperture that allo ws more signal through for better accuracy.

Valmet Converting’s UK-based Atlas division has completed its biggest-ever sales contract in China. The order for the Jiangsu Shuangliang Packing Material Company was one 6,7 m wide and three 8,3 m wide primary film slitters, worth approximately US$10 million.
Jiangsu Shuangliang is a manufacturer of industrial air-conditioning equipment. It is entering plastics film production with four BOPP film production lines in September 2004. The four Atlas film slitters will be running at up to 1,200 m/min processing up to 120,000 tonnes of BOPP film per year. Most of the film produced will be destined for the packaging industry, for wrapping a wide range of consumer goods for both the domestic and export markets. The project also represents the biggest ever single investment in BOPP film production lines in the world. This company will become one of the biggest producers of BOPP film in China by 2005.

XALOY, which is part of the Saurer surface technology division, acquired New Castle Industries active in the production of screws and cylinders from Ampco-Pittsburgh Corporation, USA. The weakness of the American market has led to a considerable over-capacity in the plastics machinery industry in the last two years. The acquisition of New Castle will result in speeding up the necessary consolidation and capacity adjustment in this market which is of importance for XALOY. Synergies in production, marketing and administration will provide considerable added value for XALOY in view of Saurer’s planned divestment of surface technology.
New Castle has a strong market position in the USA in the component field (cylinders, screws and rolls) for plastification technology and produces a turnover of about approximately US$25 million with 234 employees. The acquisition price is approximately US$17 million.

Licocene® is the name for Clariant’s new polyolefin waxes manufactured using metallocene catalysts – in short: ‘metallocene waxes’. What makes them unique is their property profile, which can be optimized and tailored to suit diverse applications. The family of waxes includes polyethylenes and focuses on speciality grades of polypropylenes and copolymers. They distinguish themselves by an excellent cost-benefit-ratio. They have already been successfully used as dispersing aids in the production of masterbatches, in adhesives and sealants as well as in fibre glass coatings for composites. These applications provide access to the plastics and automotive industry as well as to several other sectors.

At present the waxes are produced in a continuously operating pilot plant. This pilot plant is too small to satisfy strongly increasing demand from customers. Therefore, Clariant has decided to build a production plant at the Höchst Industriepark site which is planned to come on stream by the beginning of 2006. As a result Clariant’s expertise in polyolefin wax technology and products will be focussed at this site.

Clariant’s innovative metallocene catalysis process for the production of polyolefin waxes is unique world-wide. For the first time the most important product properties such as hardness, melting point and viscosity can be exactly adjusted over a wide range in practically unlimited combinations. For the customer, this results in countless ways of controlling the processing and application properties of his products. This diversity can be further extended by chemical modification of the metallocene waxes.

Unveiled in co-operation with Kiefel Extrusion GmbH at June’s prestigious NPE show in Chicago, Borealis’ new Borclear polypropylene grade overcomes conventional PP limitations in blown film. Borclear RB707CF delivers superior optical properties in combination with good processability and excellent stiffness/tenacity balance, and is intended for co-extrusion as sealing layer.

Borealis has recently developed a new class of polypropylenes called Borclear. The latest innovation of this unique random/terpolymer family is the grade Borclear RB707CF, which was unveiled at the world’s largest plastics and elastomers show NPE in Chicago, june 23-27 in co-operation with the KIRION® blown film extrusion line of machinery producer KIEFEL Extrusion GmbH. The new Borclear grade has been specially designed for conventional blown film technology with air-cooling. Up to now the majority of PP grades were quite limited in this kind of processing technology due to their poor processability, low tenacity and especially poor optical properties. With Borclear RB707CF these limitations are now overcome.

Bayer is to sell its Walothen film subsidiary to the Wihuri group of Finland in a deal to take effect on 1 September. Based at the Walsrode Industrial Park in German, Walothen produces high performance BOPP film for four market segments: tobacco packaging, print lamination, overwrap films and standard films. It turns over some E60m and employs 240 people. Wihuri already has activities at the Walsrode Industrial Park making high grade composite films for food packaging, medical and technical applications.
Wihuri is one of Finland’s leading industrial groups with more than 6,000 employees; its Wipak and Winpak packaging business in Europe and North America respectively, employ over 3,000 people and have sales worth over E600m.

A biaxially oriented polypropylene film plant is to be set up by Novatek of Russia using a turnkey line from Brückner. The line will have a working width of 8.2m, a wide range of thicknesses, products and applications, and will produce around 25,500 tonnes per year of metallised film, high shrinkage tobacco film, adhesive tapes and other opaque, plain and co-extruded films for packaging.
Brückner is managing the whole project from the erection of the buildings to the supply of all the equipment, peripherals and services.