Strictly-Extrusion

Sealant Equipment & Engineering, Inc.’s new Servo-Flo® 704-HV two-component, variable-ratio, high-volume, meter-mix dispense system is ideal for automated, semi-automated or robotic dispensing applications. The dual-servomotor design is used by manufacturers wanting one system to dispense various size mixed material volumes and to electronically adjust the material ratio without changing meter hardware.
The Servo-Flo 704-HV is a high-volume continuous flow dual-gear meter system which precisely proportion, mixes and dispenses infinite volumes of two-part epoxies, polyurethanes, silicones and acrylics. The dual-servomotor design provides fixed and variable flow-rate dispensing or variable flow-rate profiling, which varies the dispense rate, on-ratio, during filling operations for optimum part quality and production cycle time.
Three levels of operator interface controls are available to handle the meter-mix dispense process requirement. The system operator interface control quickly selects a preset dispense program which sets adjusts material-volume settings and output flow rates for different-size part batches or extruded bead sizes. The system controller accepts inputs from the automation controller or the operator interface to select different stored, or create new, flow and volume programs for different product-dispensing requirements.
The meter system accepts low- to high-viscosity materials and is supplied by pumps or pressure tanks supplied by Sealant Equipment & Engineering, Inc. The Servo-Flo 704-HV meter, control panel and supply can be frame-mounted, portable-cart mounted or enclosed with necessary accessories.

Davis-Standard, LLC will showcase advanced extrusion and converting technologies for high-speed and wide-width film applications during Chinaplas, May 21-24. Davis-Standard is one of the world’s largest and most complete suppliers of machinery for cast film, extrusion lamination, fabric coating, liquid coating and laminating, blown film and sheet applications.
Of special interest to the Chinese market is Davis-Standard’s range of high-speed cast stretch wrap lines. These lines can be engineered in four-up, six-up and eight-up configurations, including winders with 25-second cycle times and winders capable of winding 500mm diameter rolls as well as short hand-wrap rolls. Other featured equipment includes high barrier film and extrusion laminating machinery with foil unwind speeds to 800 meters per minute, cast PP coextrusion machinery and wide fabric coating/laminating machines for temporary structures and geomembrane applications. Liquid coating and laminating machines for window protection films, release tapes, adhesive tapes and special laminated products which add value to commodity products such as BOPP are also available. New, higher quality agricultural film machines are featured for high value films such as silage wrap, silo bags, mulch and greenhouse films.
Davis-Standard’s process and applications engineers will be available to discuss these technologies as well as the R&D support, local service capabilities and vast product knowledge base available to customers. For more information prior to the show, visit www.bc-egan.com or www.davis-standard.com.

Irish firm Quality Plastics has been acquired by Pipelife, a joint venture between Solvay and Weinerberger. The specialist pipes and fittings company has a strong focus on hot & cold water systems, which are suitable for replacing metals in many applications. Quality Plastics manufacturers cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) multi-layer, polyethylene and polybutylene pipes, along with a wide range of fittings and accessories at two factories near Cork. The company, which is also present in the UK and exports to a number of European countries, has 174 employees and annual sales of €42m. Pipelife CEO Miguel Kohlmann said: “Quality Plastics is a perfect complement for us and will reinforce one of Pipeline’s fastest growing product lines – hot & cold – while giving us access to the Irish and UK markets. Quality Plastics managing director Gary Horgan said: “From our point of view it is the perfect time to become part of the Pipelife group. We have found a partner that will be able to accelerate our growth and give us a real international dimension.”

Beginning with underfloor heating, continuing with sanitary pipes and moving into anti-freeze pipe applications - producers of PE-X pipes have been giving their preference to Lupolen high density polyethylene for decades. The material is celebrating now its 35 years of commercial use in pipe applications.
It all began in 1968, when inventor Thomas Engel patented a process that used Lupolen 5261 Z, one of Basell predecessors’ state-of-the-art grades for use in PE-X pipe, to create the first cross-linked PE pipe. In 1972, Wirsbo (nowadays Uponor) produced the first commercial PE-X application - underfloor heating pipes.
‘One of those first peroxide cross-linked PE-X pipes produced using Lupolen 5261 Z is still in service today and continues to undergo creep tests at 95°cdesigned to evaluate the progressive deformation of the pipes under pressure at elevated temperatures,’ said Ulrich Schulte, head of Application and Technical Service for Basell’s Pipe and Sheet business unit.
‘When PE-X pipe grades were in the early development stages, customers were aiming to produce hot water pipe systems with a minimum service life of 50 years,’ added Schulte.
In the early years of plastic pipe material development, researchers based their indication of service life on accelerated pressure tests at elevated temperatures. The results were then extrapolated using a mathematical formula, the Arrhenius methodology. ‘By 1972, after only three years of testing at elevated temperature, the Arrhenius extrapolation indicated a potential service life, under adequate installation and utilisation conditions, of above 50 years for cross-linked pipes made from Lupolen resin,’ said Schulte. It is gratifying to know that today, more than 35 years later, the results of the long term creep tests initiated by those pioneers working with Lupolen grades show a correlation with the service life potential of actual PE-X pipes still in use,’ says Schulte.
The Lupolen 5261 Z test findings are significant, because pipe manufacturers are using this extrapolation method to provide an indication also of the service life of PE-X pipes using new-generation of Lupolen 5261 Z Q 456, Lupolen 5461 B Q 471, Lupolen 5031 L Q 449 K and Lupolen 4261 A Q 416 grades.
Basell is the global leader in polyolefins technology, production and marketing. It is the largest producer of polypropylene and advanced polyolefin products; a leading supplier of polyethylene and catalysts, and the industry leader in licensing polypropylene and polyethylene processes, including providing technical services for its proprietary technologies. Basell, together with its joint ventures, has manufacturing facilities in 19 countries and sells products in more than 120 countries.

DSM Elastomers will start production next year of a new family of EPDM grades based on a catalyst system licensed from Nova Chemicals and subsequently developed by the company’s own R & D team.
ACE (Advanced Catalysis Elastomers) provides the platform from which the company aims to develop a series of differentiated products, exploiting the high receptivity of VNB (2-vinyl-5-norbornene), a third monomer in the synthetic rubber, to peroxide curing agents. This benefit, which emerged from work on long chain branching at DSM’s powerful R & D facility, enables levels of expensive peroxide to be reduced.
The company, market leader in EPDM with its Keltan range, has already filed several patents based on the technology which will be targeted at applications such as radiator hoses and window gaskets.
Bob Hartmayer, DSM Elastomers president, unveiled the advance yesterday during a press event for the Keltan business which has undergone a period of restructuring. Now, American Hartmayer is aiming to lift the profile with a new global marketing campaign under the Keltan – Nothing Compares motto, news that the Triunfo plant in Brazil will introduce reactive extrusion technology later this year, boosting its scope in oil additives and functional modifiers, and consideration of a third EPDM manufacturing site.
The Keltan family, which also includes Sarlink TPV, is part of DSM Performance Materials cluster, of which DSM Engineering Plastics is also a component. This business yesterday announced plans for a new compounding plant near Pune, in India. The unit will triple the company’s existing Indian capacity for compounding Akulon PA6, Arnite PBT and PET and Stanyl PA 46.

Basell, one of the world’s leading suppliers of resins used by customers in pipe applications, has set up a team of sales and marketing staff in its Chinese locations dedicated to addressing the polyolefin requests of the expanding plastic pipe industry in that country.
Located in the company’s Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou sales offices, the team is designed to effectively serve Chinese customers who select Basell’s high-performance, energy-saving and reliable polypropylene and polyethylene resins for their pipe applications in the Chinese growing market.
‘China is probably the fastest growing market for plastic pipes in the world,’ said Michael Vogt, (Business Development Manager Pipe - Asia), who will head up the Asia team from Basell’s Hong Kong office. ‘We see significant potential, as demand for plastic pipe in the country is expected to grow from 680 million metres in 2005 to a projected 1.1 billion metres in 2010, an annual increase of 10.5 per cent.’ He added, ‘Our goal is to further build upon the success we have already established in China.’
Basell’s Hostalen PE 80 and PE 100 grades are being selected by Chinese customers for manufacturing drinking water and gas pressure pipes. Pipes produced using these grades are known for their excellent impact/stiffness balance, outstanding corrosion resistance and resistance to stress cracking.
In the field of heating and plumbing applications, customers in China produce pipe using Basell’s Hostalen PP-R (polypropylene random copolymers), which combines outstanding creep strength with good impact resistance. Lupolen resins are also being used by Chinese customers for PE-X (cross-linked polyethylene) applications thanks for their outstanding environmental stress crack resistance and excellent creep behaviour at elevated temperatures.
Other Basell grades being used by customers in gravity sewage pipe applications include Hostalen PP copolymers like Hostalen PP H2483 a PP-HM (high modulus) resin which shows an improved stiffness / toughness balance compared to standard PP copolymers.
‘As a resins innovator and the original developer of resins widely used by customers in pipe applications, Basell is effectively equipped to serve the needs of this growing industry,’ said Richard Roudeix, vice president for Basell’s Pipe and Sheet business. ‘Basell and its predecessors have more than 50 years of experience producing and supplying its Hostalen HDPE grades to customers in the pipe business. This year Basell is celebrating its 35th anniversary of supplying Lupolen grades used in cross-linking processes.

A newly installed XP Express™ roll stand from Davis-Standard, LLC has helped Crawford Industries increase outputs on one of its extrusion lines by 120 percent. Crawford Industries, based in Crawfordsville, Indiana, is a leading national sheet extruder and converter of graphic quality PE and PP for the custom packaging and graphics arts industries. The XP Express was purchased as an upgrade to an older line and the results have been impressive. Not only have outputs increased significantly, but the company is able to change rolls in 20 minutes versus two to three hours with the old roll stand.
‘The simplicity and efficiency of this machine is impressive,’ said John Nowotarski, plant manager at Crawford Industries’ plant in Thomasville, Georgia. ‘It runs off a touch screen and has outstanding capabilities for fast roll changes and production of thin gauge sheet. As an added benefit, the installation was one of the easiest I’ve experienced in years. We were up and running within a week.’
Crawford Industries has been a Davis-Standard customer since the early 1960s, purchasing extruders in various sizes and roll stands. The company’s new XP Express was customized to include a cooling fan and an offset top roll. The roll stand is being used to process PP and PE thin gauge sheet with a thickness range from .01 to .045 inches (.25 to 1mm). This version of the XP Express is the ‘CS’ version for custom sheet applications. A ‘PS’ model is available for custom packaging applications.
The XP Express is Davis-Standard’s most versatile roll stand for sheet and packaging applications, with capabilities for lamination, solution coating, auxiliary cooling, slitting and trimming, embossing and protective film. It is equipped with high speed features, thermal cooling, individual roll speed control, repeatable roll positioning and accurate linear roll adjustment for various roll diameters in any position. The roll stand can be configured in an upstack, downstack, offset top or an offset bottom arrangement with roll cooling for three, four or five rolls. It also includes a hands-free roll gap system with automatic roll gap control and/or load force control for additional operator safety and efficiency.
‘I am not an engineer, so I appreciate being able to explain what I want to Davis-Standard’s engineers without getting into the specific aspects of the technology,’ added Nowotarski. ‘They always supply exactly what I need. We will definitely look at purchasing more of these machines for future upgrades.’

PSI-Polymer Systems Inc. has been awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,147,774 B2 by inventor Bart Jones for its ‘Pressure Activated All Metal Lifetime Seal’ utilized in its Model HSC Hydraulic Slide Plate and Model MSC Manual Screen Changers.
The all metal seal, which comes standard on HSC screen changers and is optional on the MSC screen changers, uses six precision cut segments to provide sealing of the slide plate at temperatures from room temperature up to 700°F and 10,000 psi head pressure. The patented seal eliminates dead areas associated with other types of all-metal seals and eliminates the need for Teflon rings, which fail at elevated temperatures and deteriorate over time, and require replacement in all applications.
‘We are pleased that we have received patent approval on our seal,’ said Glenn Woodcock, President of PSI. ‘It provides our customers with a big advantage as it withstands high temperatures and never requires replacement or adjustment, and lasts for the life of the screen changer. It allows for leak-free processing and uses a streamlined design that eliminates product and color hang-up.’
The inventor of the seal is PSI’s Bart Jones, well known in the industry for screen changers as the founder of Extek, Inc., now part of Xaloy Extrusion. ‘We’re happy to have Bart on board with us here at PSI,’ said Woodcock. ‘His years of experience specifically working with screen changers in the plastics industry has proven invaluable to us and more importantly, to our customers.’
PSI Screen Changers
The patented PSI metal seal comes standard on the HSC hydraulic screen changer line, which is available for extruders from 2.5′ (63.5mm) to 10′ (254mm), with outputs from 100 lbs/hr to 10,000 lbs/hr. The company recently added its Model HSC-65 (165 mm) and Model HSC-100 (254mm) screen changers to the HSC product line.
The new seal is optional on the PSI MSC manual screen changer line, which is available in numerous sizes for outputs from 15 lbs/hr to 4,800 lbs./hr.

Chemtura Corporation (NYSE:CEM) announce a 15% increase on the selling price of their tin stabilizer range in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, effective 1st April 2007 or as contract terms permit. The increase, valid for all pack sizes, is driven by unexpected
tight tin metal product supply and the dramatic increase in tin-metal costs over the last 12 months, and in particular over the last two months. Customers are asked to contact their account representatives with any questions they may have.