Robert Bateman, president and an owner of Roplast Industries Inc., USA has received the 2000 Leo Shluker Award of the The California Film Extruders & Converters Association. Colleagues say he has filled a role as industry conscience, affecting plastic bag-making regulations, development and trade groups for two dozen years.
TWI in association with a research group in the Ukraine has developed a process for spirally winding pipes from reeled strip. The process packs pipes as coils which are wound spirally in multiples and bonded at their edges. TWI says pipe from 90 to 1,600 mm diameter can be made this way, with wall thicknesses from 2 - 40 mm. Typical line speeds are around 30 m/hour depending on pipe size.
After 15 years at Battenfeld Gloucester Engineering, Harold Wrede, the company´s president and chief executive officer, will retire at the end of the year. Phil Murphree, a plastics packaging veteran, will succeed Wrede. Murphree is scheduled to join the Gloucester maker of film and sheet 1 st October.
The Chemson Group has acquired the North American Chemical Group in Philadelphia, a producer of stabilizers for PVC-U applications and cable compounds. Chemsom with a total of 420 employees expects a turnover of EURO 140 million this year.
Companies in Indiana are taking the initiative to train new employees for plastics-related jobs. Several companies and foundations are setting up a Plastic Technology Center in Angola to educate high school students and adults to be skilled workers in the plastics industry. The companies expect to invest more than US$1,7 million in the project.
Bellaform Extrusionstechnik, Germany has launched a new developed machine control called “Bellex 2000″. Main features of the new control with touchscreen display are the possibility to implement up to five extrusion lines (e.g. for co-extrusion) and the online remote maintenance.
Novoplast AG, a subsidiary of Masterflex AG, Germany has celebrated its 10 th anniversary and has started production at its new clean room facility for medical tubes. Novoplast is specialized in PUR spiral tubes for the automotive field and is producing medical tubes since 1996. Masterflex is a leading manufacturer of TPU tubes used as a substistute for PVC, rubber and steel.
Bunzl Extrusion Inc., USA has purchased medical tube maker Pexco Inc. of Northborough, USA. Pexco had sales of US$6,8 million last year and its two operations have more than 25 extruders in total.
Unicor GmbH Rahn Plastmaschinen, the German subsidiary of the Finnish plastic pipe systems company Uponor Oyj, has signed a EUR 50 million contract to supply composite pipe technology to China. The buyer is Shenyang Ginde, a company of the Hong Yuan Group, a manufacturer of building materials. The deliveries of pipe extrusion lines will extend over a period of three years. The first lines are currently being installed.
Celanese, Germany has purchased the polyvinyl alcohol unit of Air Products and Chemicals (APCI). The US$ 326 million deal will include two U.S.-based production facilities in Calvert City, Kentucky and Pasadena,Texas with a total capacity of 85.000 tonnes per anno. PVOH is used in various ways, among other things as a base material for special application film.