Electrical/electronics

Sabic Innovative Plastics (Pittsfield, MA) is playing a key role in the conversion of incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) as global requirements for energy-efficient alternatives continue to tighten. The most recent example is the company's Lexan FXD polycarbonate (PC) resin employed by Osram to mold its new line of retrofit CFL candle bulbs.

Still need another niche to help protect your business from competition, both local and overseas? If your company’s skill set is large, then maybe you should think small, as in very tiny components.

The printable electronics industry is in its infancy but is expected to be worth tens of billions by the end of this decade, and plastics suppliers have been busily jockeying to acquire the technology needed to ensure their success in this rapidly expanding field.

Processors and parts designers attending the K show this fall have a golden opportunity to put a new haptic test through its paces. By monitoring how test persons touch an object, and comparing this with the stated objective perceptions, the test can help determine if a part's haptics really are as pleasing to potential customers as its designer had hoped.

PolyOne Corp. (Cleveland, OH) has opened a wholly owned business development office in Seoul, South Korea in response to the "growth of consumer product design and manufacturing companies, as well as polymer processors, in the Asia-Pacific region," according to Willie Chien, president of Asia operations for the resin distributor and compounder.

Custom molder, toolmaker, and contract manufacturer Precimold (Candiac, QC) has completed the purchase of the Search & Rescue lighting division EJE Trans-Lite (EJETL) from one of its clients, Rutter Inc. of St. John's, NL, for which it had been molding all the plastic components for the past 12 years.

Styron LLC (Midland, MI) has debuted a new polycarbonate resin grade in the Americas and Europe specifically for use in optical media. Calibre 1060 DVD can be used for all optical disc applications including CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray.

The R&D pipeline has been a long one, but officials at Integral Technologies Inc. (Bellingham, WA) indicate that their conductive thermoplastic compounds, reportedly significantly more efficient than ones as yet available, are ready for broad market deployment using various thermoplastic matrices.

The problems with injection molding conventional PLA are well known, not least of which are its low heat resistance and limited injection-molding capability because of PLA’s increased cycle time. Teijin and Panasonic Electric Works announced their joint development of heat-resistant polylactide (PLA) molding compound made from 80% plant-based renewable feedstock and providing significantly reduced molding cycle time of around half that of conventional PLA compounds.

The PLA compound that Teijin Ltd. and Panasonic Electric Works Co. have developed jointly, which boasts a melting point of at least 210ºC for high heat stability, is now being marketed by Panasonic, and is reported to cut molding cycle time by about half compared to conventional PLA compounds.