To meet the needs of an aging population and new trends in health care, the medical device industry has undergone a number of changes in the types of devices produced and the materials selected. For...

Smith Optics is a leading OEM in sunglasses, goggles and helmets. Smith Optics launched a new product line named Evolve, aiming at offering more sustainable solutions to the sports market. The...

Consumers, ever more aware of potentially risky toys and housewares, are increasingly seeking out eco-friendly products. Toy and houseware manufacturing is changing in response to these consumer...

Transparent plastics are used principally when clarity of vision through the material is a desired property (>92% light transmittance; < 2% haze). In consumer goods markets, there are numerous... (2 Member Reactions) 

Rotational Moulding is not just a process from the past; it has much to offer current designers looking for flexibility. The range of materials, design options and post-moulding operations available... (1 Member Reaction) 

It is said that medical packaging will be dramatically different by the end of the next decade. Medical device and pharmaceutical packaging will become easier to use, less costly to produce, and...

Regulatory agencies worldwide, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Commission's Scientific Committee on Food, have assessed the safety of BPA (considered an endocrine... (3 Member Reactions) 

The explosive global growth of the photovoltaic (PV) market on the order of 30% is creating strong opportunities for related specialty engineered material systems. The combination of high growth, new... (8 Member Reactions) 

Plastic materials play an important role in many new product designs, a fact often reflected in the winning designs of the prestigious International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA). Sponsored by the... (1 Member Reaction) 

Far from being just another exhibition where you meet customers you already know, MEDTEC UK, the major medical exhibition in the UK is a showcase for raw materials, manufacturing technology,...

Recycling waste plastics is now a very substantial business. The UK currently recycles or recovers approximately 19% of all plastic consumed and this is set to increase to over 25% by 2010. How has...  

Thermoplastic, polyphthalamide (PPA) is a high performance polyamide (nylon). Polyamides, which encompass a wide variety of products, are polymers having an amide linkage in the polymer backbone... (2 Member Reactions) 

The world is turning digital. Typewriters are almost extinct - but in design, a surprising number of people still use pen and paper to create rough sketches. Moving to CAD, it usually involves large...

Root canal: the phrase is enough to make grown men cry. To make it worse, it's not an operation that dentists particularly enjoy doing. Now a specialist company, Smartseal, has developed a novel way...  

Platinum nanoparticles are widely used as the cathode material in hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells (like the polymer electrolyte fuel cell - PEFC) due to their efficiency in catalyzing the oxygen reduction...

The widespread use of thermplastic elastomers, TPEs, commerically as the material of choice for elastomeric parts has made their adoption a common focus for those developing new parts. It is common to... (1 Member Reaction) 

Car manufacturers are embracing new materials and technologies as consumers demand cleaner transport and carmakers center their focus on sustainability issues. Plastics use in car manufacturing is... (2 Member Reactions) 

To create the signature "floating roof design" on its new 2009 model-year (MY) cross-over utility vehicle (CUV), the Flex, Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, Michigan, U.S.A.) went with darkened windows and 10...

Dr. Jim Lunt (jl@jimluntllc.com; www.jimluntllc.com) has spent over 40 years in the plastics industry in Europe, North America and Asia. For the past 16 years he has been actively involved in the... (5 Member Reactions) 

Where an elastomeric or flexible material is needed for an application, a TPE is always a potential for consideration. TPEs have advantages over conventional thermoset rubbers including reduced costs,...