Strictly-Extrusion

Davis-Standard, LLC recently announced several top level promotions, including the appointment of new leadership for its Converting Systems and Extrusion Systems business units.

Extrusion Systems
Jim Murphy has been promoted to president of Davis-Standard, LLC Extrusion Systems. In this capacity, Mr. Murphy will continue to be responsible for all Extrusion Systems’ marketing, sales and technology functions. He will also lead efforts to aggressively pursue new market opportunities that will drive improved sales and earnings. Ernie Plasse has been promoted to executive vice president of Extrusion Systems. Mr. Plasse will maintain responsibility for all Extrusion Systems’ manufacturing, engineering and service functions, and will continue to lead the company’s “GROW” initiative to improve cycle times and overall effectiveness. John Zachow has been named business director for wire and cable and Merritt products. With this promotion, Mr. Zachow increases his existing responsibilities for wire and cable to include oversight of sales and marketing for Merritt Products in conjunction with Sandy Guthrie.

Converting Systems
Mark Panozzo has been promoted to president of Converting Systems. He will assume leadership responsibility for all Converting Systems brands including Black Clawson Converting Machinery, Egan and ER-WE-PA. Hassan Helmy will continue in his role as executive vice president responsible for marketing, sales and technology functions for Converting Systems. He will also continue as a managing director for Davis-Standard GmbH.

Kiefel Extrusion has revealed the first glimpse of a new MDO (Machine Direction Orientation) monoaxial orientation module for film production. The technology is said to offer film converters new opportunities of substituting present complex barrier film structures with simpler ones. In a demonstration at its headquarters in Worms, Germany yesterday, Kiefel said the MDO has been designed to operate at up to 300 m/min with throughput up to 1,000 kg/hr. It is available for offline use, to enhance properties of either cast or blown film, and for inline use with Kiefel’s Kirion blown film lines. First tests with the MDO have shown that among the various film downguaging possibilities, polyethylene blown film with an EVOH barrier layer can be stretched four times without any reduction of barrier properties. Kiefel says this achieves significant EVOH material cost savings and opens up potential for new applications such as enabling barrier film to be used at an acceptable cost to extend the shelf life of biscuits. The MDO will be taken for demonstration at the Kiefel Extrusion stand at the NPE fair in Chicago in June.

Monos is the name of the new, powerful extruders from Cincinnati Extrusion GmbH, Vienna, Austria, which show a convincing performance in the produc-tion of various types of pipe with optimized technology. With their processing length extended to 37 D, the new single-screw extruders achieve an increase in output of up to 30% compared to their predecessor models from the Proton series. They also require less space than the earlier models, since the laterally protruding ventilators originating from a component supplier have been dis-pensed with, and the width of the control terminal has been reduced.
The new single-screw extruders, available in six sizes with screw diameters ranging from 45 to 150 mm and an output range between 270 and 1850 kg/h, are basically suitable for all applications demanding optimal melt quality at low melt temperatures. The extended 37 D processing unit, combined with the special Power Feed barrier screw and including an innovative compounding section at the screw tip, produces PE and PP pipes with perfectly smooth surfaces.
The Monos extruder’s control terminal is equipped with an air-water heat exchanger as standard. Monitoring of the cooling circuits provides additional protection for the machine. Monos extruders also achieve optimal product quality in the field of corru-gated gas and water pipes made from PE 100, PE 80 or PP. A long service life is ensured by bi-metallic barrels and screws with a special coating in the feed zone, which are included as standard.
The range of torques available provides high output performance at relatively low screw speeds. Monos extruders equipped with maintenance-free direct drives are available as an option.

After acquisition by Fabrel Lotos Zurich and the Buss management, Buss AG Pratteln (Switzerland) is once again an independent manufacturer of compounding and processing plants. A friendly separation agreement with retrospective effect per January 1, 2006 terminated the company’s five-year membership of the Coperion Group, Stuttgart. The globally active Buss AG, with annual sales around CHF 60 million, currently employs 200 people. Strategic planning for the next few years is focussed on growth. To efficiently support its 1200 customers and provide local maintenance and service for some 3400 machines installed worldwide, Buss has its own sales and service subsidiaries in Chicago, Singapore, Shanghai and Tokyo as well as a global network of highly experienced agents.
The parties have agreed not to reveal the transaction price. The new Board chairman Hans-Ulrich von Weissenfluh explained the reason for this acquisition as follows: “Having regained its independence, Buss AG can now concentrate purposefully and unrestrictedly on its speciality markets in the plastics, chemical, aluminium and food industries. Its experienced employees and well-proven management team under Dr. Beat Sturzenegger guarantee the continuity desired both by customers and ourselves. Furthermore, the company can build on the substantial progress made over the last few years. Its successful new developments
will be systematically marketed, and Fabrel Lotos will give this strategy full support. The Buss Kneader invented more than half a century ago was a record-breaking industrial innovation. Thanks to successful ongoing development, it is still the best available product for many applications today – and I am convinced that it will remain so for many years to come”. From the Buss point of view, Dr. Sturzenegger added: ‘This majority acquisition by Fabrel Lotos, a well-established Swiss investor with substantial industrial
experience, entirely meets our goals. Thanks to our new owner, we can further increase our innovation strength thereby. It spurs our highly motivated team to focus even more on serving our customers as an innovative solution-oriented system supplier for many demanding processing and compounding tasks. With this customer-oriented strategy we shall further expand our market shares, which are already high at 15 to over 50 percent according to sector”.

Dow Corning Compounding Senior Specialist Valerie Smits will discuss organosilane technology as an alternative for tailor-made curative systems to a variety of polymer matrices and performance requirements at the inaugural TPE Conference, May 11-12, in Akron, Ohio.
Smits presentation, “How Can You Benefit from Si-based Technology for TPV Production?” will examine drawbacks of well-established techniques to perform crosslinking of the elastomeric phase in TPV production such as process stability, color and toxicity issues, and moisture uptake. She will also present insights concerning organosilane technology to support the development of new thermoplastic vulcanizate composites.
Smits’ presentation will be 10:45 - 11:15 a.m., Friday, May 12.
Smits joined Dow Corning in January 2005 as compounding senior specialist in The Surface and Interface Solutions Center at Dow Corning S.A., Seneffe, Belgium. She manages the plastic and rubber laboratory, as well as evaluating and developing silane applications for the plastic and rubber markets, such as dynamic vulcanization, crosslinking, and composites using in-situ or pre-treated fillers. Her primary objective is to help customers across different disciplines, businesses and industries discover and implement innovative technologies for their applications.
Prior to joining Dow Corning, she worked at Total Petrochemicals S.A. for eight years, holding key positions as Polypropylene New Application Development Engineer, Metallocene Polyolefin Application Development Engineer and Technical Service Engineer. She acted as the primary technical interface with key customers and she also authored several patents. She holds a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Mons - FPMS (Belgium).
The TPE Conference of the Rubber Division of the American Chemical Council follows the Rubber Division’s 169th technical meeting. The conference will focus on bringing together the many agencies and companies associated with thermoplastic elastomers within the rubber and pharmaceutical industries. For more information on the conference, visit www.rubber.org/meetings/1current/tpe.htm

Huhtamäki Oyj has agreed to sell its EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) packaging business and assets of Huhtamaki France S.A. located in Auneau, France and all shares of Huhtamaki Embalagens Portugal S.A. engaged in the EPS packaging business in Setubal, Portugal, to the French Ono Packaging S.A.S. The annual net sales of the sold units are around EUR 21 million and they currently employ approximately 130 people. The sale will be closed subject to the regulatory approval. ‘The sold units serve the local meat and poultry packaging market and have dedicated EPS assets. We will continue growing our capabilities and capacity in alternative technologies serving European fresh food markets,’ says Timo Salonen, Executive Vice President, Rigid Packaging Europe.

Klöckner Pentaplast announced a new domestic distribution program in the US and Canada for its extensive line of 3-D furniture films in partnership with Surface Source International,USA. Surface Source International (SSI) will stock the entire collection of Klöckner Pentaplast’s US and a premiere selection of European produced 3-D films in its Randolph distribution center. Designed to enhance service to the marketplace, this partnership is the first new major European stock collection being launched in the US and Canada in a decade.
SSI will be stocking over 30 Klöckner Pentaplast trend-leading designs and colors with select melamine and HPL matches to insure a uniform overall appearance. New solid colors, printed wood grains, high-gloss prints, high-gloss solids, and metallics in vinyl and polyester will be featured. Solid color films will be available in various thicknesses and textures, as will a broad range of wood grain films, such as maple and cherry. Customers will now be able to purchase these designs in any order size, allowing for flexibility in project scope.

Next Generation Films Inc. bills itself as ‘America’s fastest-growing coex film company.’ And for good reason. Since operations began in 1994, Next Generation, of Lexington, Ohio, has made a name for itself in the technically demanding business of high-end and specialty blown films. The company started with three coextrusion lines. Next Generation now has seven lines running 24/7 and two more slated for installation. Sales are projected to surpass $60 million in 2006, says owner David Frecka, triple what they were just four years ago.
A lot has changed for Next Generation Films since its founding, but one feature stayed the same: its preference for winders from Battenfeld Gloucester Engineering Co. Inc., a specialist in the design and manufacture of machinery and dies for film and sheet production. Next Generation has specified Battenfeld Gloucester’s model 1008D winder on four blown film lines - including two of its three original lines - with another on order for the line it will add in 2006.
The reasons Next Generation prefers Battenfeld Gloucester winders are simple. ‘The 1008 winders are robust, accurate and extremely reliable,’ Frecka says. ‘They are easier to operate than competitive winders, and they wind better-quality rolls than anything else in the market.’
The model 1008D is a dual-turret center winder designed to handle rolls of up to 30 inches (762mm.) in diameter. It features an Allen Bradley programmable logic con-troller with touchscreen control and recipe storage for different products and materi-als.
Next Generation’s facility houses several widths of 1008D winders to accommodate their customers’ needs. The only option Frecka has ever specified is swing-out shafts on an 84-inch unit currently in use. The shafts improve the handling of rolls that are less than 10 inches (254 mm.) in diameter. ‘An operator can easily swing the shaft out and slide the rolls off.’ Everything else on the winders is standard.
Next Generation coextrudes a range of materials, mostly polyethylenes. These in-clude metallocenes, low-density, linear-low-density and high-densty grades, and ul-tra-high-molecular-weight PE. The company supplies films for such markets as food packaging, protective and courier packaging, automotive and manufactured housing.
Next Generation also prints and converts films it makes into different types of bags on eight lines, each of which is a Battenfeld Gloucester model 418HE bag-making machine. The 418HE is a versatile and established converting machine. A shuttle system with a speed-mating feature, it can be used inline or in standalone operation. The model 418HE does bottom- or side-sealed bags and handles single or multiple webs. It can be equipped with a 4-axis servo control.
In a business where every stage of processing is critical to film quality, the accuracy and repeatability of a winder is key to assuring that high-performance films achieve all their properties. For this reason Battenfeld Gloucester will continue to be the source of winders for Next Generation Films.

DuPont is demonstrating the company’s comprehensive portfolio of materials for the cable and wire industry during
Wire 2006 in Düsseldorf, Germany, 24-28 April 2006 (Stand G58, Hall 11). Part of the DuPont Advanced Fibres’ display at the show will include Kevlar® brand fibre for the protection of communication and data transmission cables. Meanwhile, DuPont Performance Coatings will provide an overview of its range of wire enamels and isolating coatings. Finally, DuPont Fluoropolymer Solutions is using Wire 2006 to introduce new developments in fluoropolymer technology for the manufacture of electrical insulation for cables and wires. These include Teflon® FEP CJ 99, which combines high levels of stress cracking resistance with speed of processing,
and Teflon® 640 XT, which has been modified to enable the particularly efficient manufacture of high-performance cables. Teflon® FEP CJ 99 is an all-purpose melt-processable copolymer grade of tetrafluoroethylene and hexafluoropropylene. Its high melt flow rate (MFR = 9 g/10 min) enables high productivity during the manufacture of wire and cable insulation. Comparative analysis of thin films of resin, using standard ASTM D 2176 to measure the MIT Flex Life , show high performance in terms of stress cracking resistance of Teflon® FEP CJ 99. Those FEP grades with similar levels of stress crack resistance have a lower melt flow rate and are thus lower in productivity. The advantageous combination of high stress crack resistance and high productivity means that this particular grade is
highly suitable for cables requiring compliance with specific winding tests at temperatures between 220 and 230 °C. Further applications include the primary insulation of large diameter automotive cables, electrical floor heating cables and the jacket insulation of LAN and coaxial cables.

Teflon® 640 XT, a PTFE fine powder resin for paste extrusion, enables a broad range of reduction ratios during cable manufacture, ranging from 250:1 up to 5000:1. Even at both extremes, a lubricant content of only 16 percent of the overall weight is needed, with the consequence that just one single PTFE-lubricant mixture can permit a multitude of reduction ratios. The required extrusion pressure is very low. Teflon® 640 XT facilitates the manufacture of particularly high-quality, thin-walled insulation with low
diameter fluctuations and virtually no surface defects. The low lubricant content allows for increased extrusion speed and lower lubricant usage. Typical applications include wires and cables for automotive engine compartments, antennas or medical equipment.

At NPE Enercon Industries will introduce a new surface treatment solution for the polymer industry. The new Dyne-A-Mite VCP™ advanced technology offers highly effective treatment for difficult to treat applications.
The system’s variable chemistry plasma allows for easier application and improved adhesion of coatings, adhesives, inks, labels and markings of all types. In-line treatment eliminates the need for costly chemical priming, etching and vacuum processes.

Variable chemistry plasma treatment is essentially an etching and functionalizing process that provides different surface characteristics depending on the gas chemistry employed. The Dyne-A-Mite VCP™ blends air (O2, N2) with other gases and deposits various chemical groups on the substrate surface to improve surface energy.

The system’s variable chemistry plasma allows for easier application and improved adhesion of coatings, adhesives, inks, labels and markings of all types. In-line treatment eliminates the need for costly chemical priming, etching and vacuum processes.

Dyne-A-Mite VCP™ is highly effective at treating and cleaning all types of polymers, elastomers and glass. It treats extruded, pultruded, molded and formed materials. Treatment is ideal for PE, PP, PET, nylon, vinyl, polystyrene, polycarbonate, PVC and all other types of thermoformed and thermoset plastics.
Typical converting applications include pre-treatment of plastics for gluing, pre-treatment of plastics for finishing and pre-treatment before printing. It is also ideal for glass cleaning, cleaning/activation of lens surfaces prior to coatings, removal of any adsorbed surface monolayers of contaminants, sterilization of microbiological culture dishes, sport shoe components (EPDM, Neoprene), cell phone jackets (ABS/PC) and more.

Variable chemistry plasma is formed using basic principles found in air-plasma and flame plasma treatment. Much like an air-plasma field, a chemistry plasma field is generated in an electrically charged atmosphere. Instead of air, this method relies on other gases that deposit various chemical groups on the substrate surface to improve its surface energy.