Due to dynamic chemical bonds, the micrometric 3D structures can grow eight-fold in just a few hours and harden. Photo Credit: C. Spiegel, Heidelberg University

In the age of smart cars and smart factories, smart polymers are only natural. These high-performance soft materials change according to the environment they’re in, making them potentially very useful for a variety of applications including some related to biotechnology and biomedicine.

In a good recent example, a team of scientists at Heidelberg University has developed a new strategy for creating “living” 3D microstructures from smart polymers that can grow in size and harden at will, potentially opening up new opportunities in fields such as micro-robotics or biomedicine by using 3D printing.

The technique combines two-photon laser printing – which allows 3D printing to be performed at the micron and nanometer scale – with dynamic covalent chemistry, which is a synthetic strategy used by chemists to make complex supramolecular assemblies from discrete molecular building blocks and which allows for reversible bond breakage and formation autonomously or in the presence of a stimulus. In particular, the Heidelberg researchers designed an ink formulation such that a kind of dynamic covalent bond known as alkoxyamine units would be incorporated into the final printed structure – these alkoxyamine bonds could then be modified after printing to add more monomers, for example, or to change the cross-linking density. “Conventional inks don’t offer such features,” said team member and Heidelberg professor Eva Blasco. “Adaptive materials containing dynamic bonds have a bright future in the field of 3D printing.”

Blasco and her colleagues identified ink components that would produce the so-called covalent adaptable microstructures (CAMs), then optimized the components’ ratios to produce the desired mix of “living” features and to print successfully. Specifically, they made sure that the ink wouldn’t require overly high laser powers or lead to slow printing speeds. Next, the researchers used a commercial direct-laser-writing system with the novel ink formulation to fabricate complex CAMs such as a sunflower, an octopus, and a gecko. A femtosecond-pulsed, near-infrared laser was focused on a tiny point within the ink solution and, through two-photon polymerization, transformed it into a solid. Many pulses of light were used to build each 3D structure, and after the print was complete, the remaining material was removed.

With different chemical reactions, Blasco and her colleagues were able to successfully alter the mechanical properties of the CAMs post-print. For example, a reaction called nitroxide-mediated polymerization chain extension introduced new monomers to the CAMs, causing them to grow eight-fold in just a few hours and harden while maintaining their shape.

“Manufacturing programmable materials whose mechanical properties can be adapted on demand is highly desired for many applications,” Blasco said.

The post Making lifelike, 3D-printed microscopic creatures from smart polymers appeared first on Canadian Plastics.

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Alejandro

More than 1,000km southwest of Mahé, the main inhabited island in Seychelles, lies a ring of coral islands called the Aldabra Atoll. The islands are a Unesco world heritage site and support a huge diversity of marine species including manta rays and tiger sharks. The atoll is also a breeding site for endangered green turtles.

Aldabra has long been protected from threats to its biodiversity by its remoteness. But now plastic debris is strewn across Aldabra’s coastlines, threatening nearby marine ecosystems. Research finds the likelihood of coral disease increases from 4% to 89% when coral are in contact with plastic.

The Seychelles Islands Foundation, who are responsible for managing Aldabra, conducted a plastic clean-up operation in partnership with Oxford University in 2019. Roughly 25 tonnes of plastic waste were removed from the islands.

A new study that we co-authored modelled the flow of plastic debris in the Indian Ocean between 1993 and 2019 and traced it to its source. We found that none of the plastic that washes up on Aldabra comes from the islands themselves.

Simulating plastic flow

Using data on plastic waste generation and fishing activity, we generated hundreds of billions of virtual plastic particles entering the Indian ocean. We then simulated their movement based on ocean currents, waves and winds.

Bottle caps and other low-buoyancy items sink fast and plastic loses buoyancy as it fragments or becomes covered in waterborne organisms. Items that remain buoyant for longer are transported further distances. To reach Aldabra from the eastern Indian Ocean, our model estimates that debris must be floating for at least six months.

We determined the likelihood that this debris would wash up on the coast by analysing the rate at which scientific “drifters” (instruments that record ocean currents) and GPS-tracked floating fishing devices become “beached”. Free-floating instruments such as these behave well as proxies for floating plastic. These observations indicate that around 3% of the debris that is within 10km of a coast beaches each day.

Island under siege

Our model predicts that Indonesia is responsible for most of the plastic debris, including as flip-flops and plastic packaging, that beaches across Seychelles. Various other countries including India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines are also major sources.

But Seychelles is also contaminated with plastic waste from other places.

Almost half of the plastic bottles found on Aldabra during the initial clean-up had been manufactured in China. But ocean currents do not flow directly between China and the western Indian Ocean. It is thus unlikely that a large number of bottles could float from China to Seychelles.

But Seychelles is close to a major shipping lane that connects southeast Asia to the Atlantic. If bottles were discarded from ships crossing the Indian Ocean then they would likely beach across Seychelles.

Research that we conducted in 2020 estimated that the fishing industry was responsible for 83% of the plastic waste on Aldabra. Most of the fishing gear abandoned by “purse seine” fisheries (a method of fishing that employs large nets to catch tuna) likely relates to regional fishing activity around Seychelles. But abandoned gear from longline fisheries may have drifted in from as far afield as western Australia.

Perhaps most importantly, our modelling also suggests that the rates at which plastic debris will beach in the Indian Ocean will follow strong seasonal cycles.

Winds tend to have a southerly (northward) component during the Indian Ocean’s summer monsoon season. But major debris sources such as Indonesia and India share similar, or more northerly, latitudes with Seychelles. During this period, debris from these sources tends to miss Seychelles and is transported further north.

By contrast, the winds reverse during the winter monsoons and transport debris directly towards Seychelles. We expect plastic debris accumulation to peak in Seychelles shortly after the winter monsoons (February to April). In the southernmost islands, almost all of the debris that beaches will do so at this point.

Planning effective mitigation

Seychelles is not responsible for generating this waste but face mounting environmental and economic costs. For example, 500 tonnes of litter remained following the initial clean-up of Aldabra’s coasts, which may cost up to US$5 million (£4 million) to remove.

The United Nations last year agreed to establish a global plastic treaty that will tackle plastic pollution at its roots. But negotiations only began recently and it may be a long time before the treaty has any meaningful impact.

Until then our modelling may help to establish other strategies to reduce the accumulation of plastic debris in Seychelles.

We identified fishing gear and shipping as being responsible for the majority of plastic pollution on Seychelles. Better enforcement of existing laws such as the 1983 ban on the disposal of plastic into the sea under the Marpol Convention should reduce the amount of plastic entering the Indian Ocean.

Predicting the peak of plastic accumulation in Seychelles will also maximise the effectiveness of beach clean-ups. Removing litter shortly after its arrival will minimise the time debris spends being broken down into unmanageable fragments.

Remote Indian Ocean islands are increasingly affected by plastic waste generated overseas. But by modelling the flow of plastic debris, we now have the chance to develop more effective strategies to reduce plastic accumulation and strengthen demands for stronger commitments under the global plastic treaty.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/julie208

For almost anyone alive nearly a century ago, Oct. 24, 1929 was a date to be remembered for its economic consequences: the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression. Fast forward to today, and another date has just passed that might be almost as important, at least for Canada’s plastics sector: Dec. 20, 2023, which is when the national ban on single-use plastics began to take effect.

Devised to help the federal government to help reach its goal, set in 2018, of zero plastic waste by 2030, the ban covers six single-use plastic items: checkout bags, cutlery, takeout ware with plastics that are hard to recycle, ring carriers, stir sticks, and straws. The manufacture and import-for-sale ban in Canada is the first step. Consumers will slowly see the phase-out of these products over the next year to “allow businesses in Canada enough time to transition and to deplete their existing stocks,” according to the government’s website. While the ban on the sale of these products began on Dec. 20, a prohibition on the manufacture, import, and sale for export of these plastics is due to take effect on Dec. 20, 2025. A prohibition on the manufacture and import for sale in Canada of ring carriers or six-pack rings, used to carry aluminum cans and plastic bottles, will begin on June 20, 2023; their sale will be banned by June 20, 2024, while their manufacture, import and sale for export will be prohibited starting Dec. 20, 2025.

GOING THROUGH THE LOOPHOLES

At first glance, the ban appears almost total, but it’s not quite that; as with most government actions, it’s complex and – fortunately for some of the processors in our industry – riddled with exemptions. While checkout bags made entirely or in part from plastic and used to carry purchased goods from a business will be banned, plastic bags that are used to hold organic waste – including pet waste – garbage, and recycled items aren’t prohibited, and neither are plastic bags used to package fruit and vegetables, loose bulk food items such as candy, grains and nuts, meat, flowers or potted plants, clothing and baked goods. (The ban also includes fabric bags that cannot meet a stress test, meaning they can’t break or tear if carrying 10 kilograms over a distance of 53 metres, 100 times, or when washed.)

For single-use cutlery, meanwhile, the bans apply to forks, knives, spoons, sporks or chopsticks that contain polystyrene (PS) or polyethylene (PE), or changes their physical properties after being run through a dishwasher 100 times, but not to reusable plastic cutlery made from material other than PS or PE and that can withstand being washed in a dishwasher 100 times.

Food containers and cups that are made entirely or in part from plastics are banned, as well as those that contain expanded or extruded PS, the latter commonly referred to as Styrofoam; polyvinyl chloride (PVC), often used in salad containers; carbon black or black plastic food containers that usually come with a transparent lid; or oxo-degradable plastic. Canadians will also not be able to buy single-use plastic cups, plates and bowls after the prohibition on sale comes into force in December 2023. But other products are allowed: plastic trays used for storing raw meat, fish and vegetables wrapped in plastic film, and pre-cooked food packaged in flexible plastic packaging; cups or containers used by hospitals and care institutions for providing medication to patients; paper and fibre-based coffee cups with a plastic lining that don’t contain one of the prohibited plastic; foodservice wares that are made from non-prohibited kinds of recyclable plastics, non-conventional or compostable plastics; and containers used for the long-term storage of food such as peanut butter, apple sauce, olives or nuts.

The manufacture and import of single-use plastic ring carriers that are designed to surround beverage containers to carry them together – typically made from low-density PE – will be banned in June 2023, but rigid plastic beverage holders aren’t prohibited because they don’t have deformable rings or bands surrounding the beverage container.

Finally, all types of plastic stir sticks are banned, period, and so too are plastic drinking straws that contain PS or PE, that can’t withstand going through the dishwasher 100 times, and that are attached to or sold with juice boxes, bags or pouches. But the manufacture and import of single-use plastic flexible straws not packaged with a beverage container are excluded under certain conditions, such as to accommodate people with disabilities; and hospitals, medical facilities, and other care institutions are allowed to offer plastic flexible straws to their patients or residents. For retailers, selling plastic flexible straws just got complicated: they’re required to keep plastic flexible straws out of customers’ view, but can sell a package of 20 or more single-use plastic flexible straws if a customer asks for it.

PUSHING BACK

Exemptions notwithstanding, the ban is probably opposed by most – if not everyone – in the Canadian plastics industry, and resistance to it began almost as soon as it was announced. The Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) filed a Notice of Objection to the bans in February 2022, and so too did a number of Canadian plastic bag makers. And in August, 2022, the Responsible Plastic Use Coalition (RPUC), consisting of more than two dozen North American plastics companies, sued to block the ban. (In June 2021, RPUC filed a lawsuit that sought to overturn the government’s decision to designate plastics as “toxic” under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.) “The [ban] was made despite a paucity of facts and evidentiary support about the nature and extent of the environmental contamination and harm arising from the SUPs [single-use plastics],” RPUC said in August 2022. “Accordingly, the ban cannot be justified as an exercise of the criminal law power conferred upon Parliament.”

There’s self-interest involved here, of course – not that this is a bad thing, as an untold number of jobs may hinge on continuing to make single-use plastics. But there’s also the objection, backed up firmly by science, that the bans not only won’t achieve anything concrete, but are actually counterproductive since replacement materials will be worse by any measure. Take paper bags, for example, which are believed by many to be more environmentally friendly than plastic bags because they’re made from a renewable resource, can biodegrade, and are recyclable. Research shows just the opposite, however: Plastic bags outperform paper bags environmentally – on manufacturing, on reuse, and on solid waste volume and generation. Paper products take substantial amounts of energy to make, making paper and cardboard the third largest industry use of energy on the planet. In comparison to cardboard, plastic is lighter and more durable and less energy intensive to manufacture.

The CIAC, and many others, alluded to this when pushing back against the bans. “No evidence [has been provided by a government assessment] that the use of substitutes will reduce littering and pollution in the environment,” CIAC said in its Notice of Objection. “Bans will not address the behaviours causing the environmental leakage. In fact, the assessment acknowledges that alternatives to plastic will lead to higher pollution, thus the government is proposing substitutes that will not actually achieve environmental goals.” And a 2022 report by The Fraser Institute, entitled Canada’s Wasteful Plan to Regulate Plastic Waste, reached the same conclusion. “Canada has launched a regulatory campaign against plastic waste, Zero-Plastic Waste 2030, that will have a negative impact on Canada’s overall economic health, the health of Canadian private-sector businesses, Canada’s imports and exports, and Canadian consumer choice (both domestic and international),” it said. “It could, via substitution effects, lead to increased environmental damages rather than their reduction.”

But as an executive at one plastics processor told Canadian Plastics, what the science says no longer matters. “Unfortunately, there’s little to say about what has been done because it can’t be undone,” he said.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE

And on the assumption that the ban won’t be undone, some companies got ahead of the legislation early on by phasing out plastic usage, and others are responding to them now. Tim Hortons had already been using paper straws since October 2020, but on the same day that phase one of the plastics ban came into effect, the company announced that it would be rolling out cutlery made of wood and fibre starting in early 2023; Tim Hortons also plans to introduce a new breakfast and lunch food wrapper the company says uses 75 per cent less material. In Vancouver, the company is also testing out new beverage lids made out of fibre. Nor is Tim Horton’s the only coffee company rushing to replace single-use plastics. Starbucks Canada announced in August 2021 it had switched to paper straws and cutlery made of recyclable polypropylene. Starbucks also resumed its bring-your-own-cup program in August 2021 after temporarily putting it on hiatus due to COVID-19 concerns – customers who bring their own cup can also get a 10-cent discount on their drink; in Vancouver, the company has also began charging 25 cents for single-use cups in compliance with city bylaws.

Among restaurant chains, A&W Canada has already made the switch to paper straws – the company announced the phase-out of plastic straws back in 2018 and is also one of the few fast food chains to offer metal baskets, glass mugs and ceramic plates to dine-in customers.

The same year, Subway Canada followed suit with paper straws, completing its transition in August 2019. In October 2021, McDonald’s Canada announced it would be switching to paper straws and wooden cutlery and stir sticks; McDonald’s has also allowed customers to bring their own reusable mugs for coffee and tea orders since July 2022.

Among the grocery and retail chains, meanwhile, Sobeys announced its move away from single-use plastic bags back in January 2020, becoming the first national Canadian grocery store to do so. Metro announced in June it would stop giving out plastic bags at its stores by September. Loblaw Companies also announced in June plans to eliminate single-use plastic shopping bags by the first quarter of 2023, and in October, the company announced the phase-out had been completed in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories. And in April 2022, Walmart stopped offering plastic bags, instead offering reusable cloth bags. But the company has been criticized for giving out cloth bags for online grocery orders, leaving some customers saddled with piles of unneeded cloth bags.

DEALING WITH IT

All of which leaves our industry with no alternative but to deal with the bans, at least for the foreseeable future. Which means being flexible enough to adapt to the new playing field. “These new regulations will greatly change the requests of our customers, and the markets will shift to films that can be used in recyclable multi-layers and containing post-consumer recycled materials,” said Pierre Sarazin, vice president of R&D and sustainability with Laval, Que.-based blown film maker PolyExpert Inc.

For Brantford, Ont.-based straw and food packaging manufacturer Stone Straw Ltd. – part of the Wentworth Technologies group and sister company Amhil North America – the ban on straws has some immediate effects as well as unknown implications for the longer term. “We got ahead of the straw ban by moving from polypropylene [PP], which our straws were traditionally made from, into compostable biopolymers early on,” said Abe Looy, vice president of operations with Stone Straw and Amhil North America. “We launched our first-generation Back to Earth compostable straws in 2019; and our second-generation Back to Earth straws, made from a cellulose acetate formula derived from wood pulp and vinegar, in 2021.” But Stone Straw’s second-generation line can’t withstand being run through a dishwasher 100 times because they’re meant to break down easily, Looy said, and the first-generation straws are still in the process of being tested – which means, ironically, that the company’s original PP straws, which do satisfy the dishwasher regulation, might just be the only straws it can dependably market in Canada. “Obviously, we’re disappointed that our cellulose acetate formula doesn’t meet the government’s regulation for straws, but we plan to use the formula for other Amhil products that aren’t banned, such as cups, lids, and clamshells. Regarding straws, in the short term we’re continuing to make our original PP straws for Canada; we’re waiting on testing on our first-generation Back to Earth straws; and our second-generation straws are still being produced here and shipped to the U.S., but that will end when the ban on exportation begins in 2025.”

And in the longer term, Looy said, Stone Straw is developing a backup plan in case the federal government ever closes the 100-dishwasher-cycle loophole. “If that happens, we intend to move our plastic and compostable straw production to the U.S. – either to an existing Wentworth facility or to a new site, depending on space requirements – and make paper straws for the Canadian market from our current plant in Brantford,” he said. “That’s a last resort – we’d prefer to stay in Canada, and we’ll remain in contact with the government going forward to see if there’s ever a plan to close that loophole.”

And while the odds might not be high, there’s always the chance the bans could be either revoked or revised under a new federal government, or struck down by a court. “There’s a recent example of this in France, where a ban on plastic packaging around certain fruits and vegetables went further than the law allowed and was struck down,” said Pierre Sarazin, who has written extensively online about Canada’s plastics ban. “Bans can be difficult to keep in place if scientific studies show there’s no positive impact to them on the environment.”

But one thing seems clear: Regardless whether the single-use plastics ban remains in place for good or is eventually revoked, Dec. 20, 2022 is a date our industry won’t soon forget.

The post What now? appeared first on Canadian Plastics.

Image Credit: Adobe Stock/Photobank

In a development that could open new avenues for producing a wide range of advanced materials, a team of researchers at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan have created a new process for making long and geometrically interlinked polymer molecules from several different alternating molecular units joined in a controlled sequence.

The process could be used for applications in many fields, the researchers said, including drug delivery, data storage, microelectronics, and nanolithography.

Synthetic polymers are some of the most common materials of the modern world, formed when individual monomer molecules react together to create polymer chains. Polyesters in clothing, polypropylene in packaging, and polyamides in ropes and machinery components are just a few common examples.

However, much more versatility is possible by gaining precise control over the sequence in which different monomer molecules combine to form blocks, which then themselves link together further – gaining fine control over the formation of these materials, known as block polymers, generally requires complicated cycles of chemical reactions.

The achievement is an example of a so-called “one-pot-and-one-step” reaction, meaning that it involves adding the required monomers to a single reaction vessel and using chemistry to control the assembly of the monomers into blocks and then into a block polymer. “We’ve managed to control the formation of block polymers in a one-pot-and-one-step process,” said Professor Toshifumi Satoh of Hokkaido University’s Division of Applied Chemistry.

The monomers in this study are called cyclic anhydrides, epoxides, and oxetanes. A crucial key to controlling how they react, the researchers said, is the use of an alkali metal carboxylate — which acts as a catalyst — to switch the polymer-building processes between different forms of reaction.

“We can control the topology and the two- and three-dimensional structure of our polymers, in addition to the basic sequence in which the monomers combine,” Satoh added.

In one experiment, the team demonstrated the potential of their technique by controlling the combination of four different monomers to make diblock tetrapolymers. The temperatures at which these materials changed from a solid into more viscous and rubbery states, known as their glass transition temperatures, could be altered by varying the specific chemical structures of the linked blocks.

The procedure can also create a variety of symmetrical polymer molecules, such as globular structures extending outwards from a simple core, similar to the branches on a tree.

“We’re excited to have developed such a controllable polymer production process that could be readily adopted for industrial scale production, as well as being useful for laboratory-level explorations of polymer chemistry,” Satoh said.

The post New method to make complex polymers with precisely controlled structures appeared first on Canadian Plastics.

Image Credit: Adobe Stock/natali_mis

Almost a decade ago, Harvard Business School professor Gary Pisano famously wrote that companies should consider creating an innovation strategy. Today, an innovation strategy is not just an optional nice thing to have — it’s a requirement for companies that want to be successful.

With significant post-pandemic inflation and interest rates climbing to new highs, the big banks are warning of a recession in 2023.

This, coupled with the longstanding impacts of intense global competition, fickle consumers, rigorous regulation, environmental degradation and disruptive technologies, has companies looking to make the most of these uncertain times. An innovation strategy is exactly how companies can accomplish this.

As innovation management researchers, we were curious about how an innovation strategy could impact corporate performance and, ultimately, economic progress. To answer these questions, we collaborated with InnovationOne, a San Francisco-based innovation consulting firm, to conduct one of the largest innovation management research studies to date.

Global innovation study

Our global study of 1,265 companies, published in Technological Forecasting & Social Change, explored the similarities between companies with an innovation strategy, the impact of an innovation strategy on corporate performance and how companies can improve their nation’s economic progress via innovation.

Similar to our other research about business innovation agendas, we found that companies with an innovation strategy had leaders committed to innovation, resources specifically dedicated to innovation, knowledge management systems that promoted learning and processes dedicated to taking new ideas to market.

Not surprisingly, companies with an innovation strategy were better equipped to implement value-added practices. Value-added practices include the implementation of novel methodologies and technologies to enhance firm performance.

Companies with an innovation strategy

Our data showed that an innovation strategy served as the necessary building block for successful engagement in practices such as big data analytics, open innovation and scientific discovery.

Collecting, interpreting and acting on large data was something that companies with an innovation strategy excelled at. This was likely due to their sophisticated knowledge management systems. Being able to work with large amounts of data allows knowledge to be shared throughout the company, creating better products, services and outcomes for customers.

Open innovation — collaborating on innovations with external partners — was also a trait of companies with an innovation strategy. This was likely a result of their innovation processes, which often involved collaborations.

New scientific discoveries were also more common among companies with an innovation strategy. All innovation strategy elements — leadership, resources, knowledge management and processes — were found to increase the likelihood of new discoveries. In addition to these practices, innovation strategies enhanced overall corporate performance.

We also found that the link between innovation strategy and corporate performance was strong, regardless of companies’ age, size and location. In other words, an innovation strategy has universal importance for companies. In addition to its corporate benefits, an innovation strategy also resulted in larger economic benefits for the companies.

Economic benefits of innovation strategy

Perhaps the most interesting finding of our study is that economic growth of countries was linked to companies’ innovation strategies. These results are largely congruent with the reputed Global Innovation Index, a benchmark for identifying innovation trends.

We found that countries with high gross domestic product (GDP) — the standard measure of economic progress — had more companies with innovation strategies. Countries with some of the highest global GDPs, like the United States, the UK and Germany, also had the greatest corporate commitments to innovation strategy.

Furthermore, positive economic impacts were not limited to high-income economies, as the “innovation overachiever” India was comprised of firms exhibiting an innovation strategy. This is particularly noteworthy, as collectively, companies can enhance their country’s economic progress by creating and implementing innovation strategies.

How companies can get started

Our research is a continuation and update to Pisano’s work. For companies that already have an innovation strategy, we recommend they stay the course or even strengthen commitments. For companies without an innovation strategy, now is the time to get to work and implement one.

To improve competitiveness and performance, executives should make innovation an integrated strategic priority by dedicating resources to innovation, creating knowledge management systems to communicate information regarding innovations, and implementing processes to track innovation progress.

It is crucial that all employees understand and engage in the innovation strategy. Comprehensive understanding and engagement yields better ideas, fosters buy-in, and eases implementation while integrating innovation across departments and individuals. Executives should draft an innovation strategy, communicate it to all employees and collaborate on its execution.

An innovation strategy allows companies to better implement novel practices, like big data analytics, as they become better resourced, monitored and managed. These practices are a part of an integrated innovation strategy by providing direct benefits to companies as they engender firm performance in the dynamic post-pandemic market.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The SymphNode device (left), contains nanoparticles (red dots) that release a drug that blocks the activity of regulatory T cells (green), which suppress the body’s response to solid tumors. At the same time, the SymphNode’s microparticles (black dots) attract and beef up cancer-fighting T cells.
Image Credit: Negin Majedi/Symphony Biosciences

An interdisciplinary research team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a therapeutic sponge the size of a pencil eraser that’s been shown to boost the body’s tumor-fighting response in mice and keep the cancer from returning.

Called a SymphNode, the implantable biodegradable device is made from alginate, the same jiggly polymer used to thicken pudding, and works by keeping in check the extra white blood cells known as regulatory T cells, or Treg cells, that surround the tumor. Treg cells protect the tumor but they also play a critical role in safeguarding healthy tissues. Attempting to treat cancer by deactivating Treg cells can have serious consequences throughout the body by causing auto-immune conditions.

When surgically implanted directly next to a tumor, the sponge stimulates the body’s immune response against cancer by slowly releasing a drug that blocks the regulatory T cells in the tumor, while at the same time attracting and beefing up the T cells that kill tumors. The material that the device is made of resembles a lymph node, a welcoming setting for cancer-fighting cells, and has pores lined with antibodies that further activate those cells.

“Getting rid of regulatory T cells within the tumor seems to be transformative,” said team member Manish Butte, UCLA’s E. Richard Stiehm Professor of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology. “Every solid tumor is crammed with these cells, and they’re why 91 per cent of cancer deaths occur from solid tumors. They’re probably limiting our ability to cure the cancer in the first place.”

The UCLA team tested the SymphNode in mouse models of both breast cancer and melanoma. With breast cancer, the device shrank tumors in 80 per cent of mice and prevented the spread of cancer in all of them; the researchers also found that placing a SymphNode next to one breast cancer tumor halted the growth of a second, simultaneous tumor at a different location in the body. In melanoma, the device shrank tumors in 100 per cent of treated mice, with tumors decreasing to undetectable levels in more than 40 per cent of cases. In both types of cancer, the treatment significantly extended the life span of mice, in many cases by more than twice that of untreated mice. Most promising, the researchers demonstrated mice whose breast cancer was treated with a SymphNode and survived also resisted the growth of a second tumor injected 100 days after the first, indicating that the technology may decrease the risk of cancer returning.

The team aims to make SymphNode available to treat human cancers in the future by licensing the technology to Symphony Biosciences, a company based at the California NanoSystems Institute’s Magnify start-up incubator on the UCLA campus. Symphony is currently developing a smaller, injectable version of the SymphNode, which the team envisions as a potential addition to chemotherapy or other first-step treatments for a variety of cancers. The company hopes to initially apply the technology to triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease that lacks targeted therapies. Clinical trials could launch as early as next year.

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A shuttle machine on the Manunor shop floor. Photo Credit: Manunor

If plastics processing can be compared for a moment to The Beatles, then rotational molding is George Harrison – the quiet one, often flying underneath the radar. But as with Harrison writing such classics as “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”, rotational molding, also known as rotomolding, can surprise you sometimes. A case in point is Sherbrooke, Que.-based rotomolder Manunor, which has been making some noise of its own over the past several years by designing and manufacturing a series of innovative products, building a new 10,000-square-foot facility adjacent to its main 90,000-square-foot plant in Sherbrooke’s Gene H. Kruger Industrial Park, and investing in new machinery that includes a massive new rock n roll machine from equipment supplier STP Rotomachinery.

DEEP ROOTS

Manunor was founded in 1993 by Jacques St-Pierre, who’s impact in the rotomolding world is considerable – he had previously founded Sherbrooke-based STP Equipment in 1988, which made independent-arm machines, fixed-arm machines, in-line shuttle machines, three- and four-sided sided shuttle machines, rocking ovens, lab machines, and a range of rotomolding accessories. Jacques St-Pierre was serving as Manunor’s CEO when Manunor entered a very busy period beginning in 2014, which is when it broke ground on its 10,000-square-foot expansion and also developed two new innovative products. The first was a parts washer to be used by machine shops and vehicle repair shops that was entirely designed and developed in Sherbrooke; with this equipment, oil and grease can be thoroughly cleaned without contaminants. The second was an innovative technology for rotomolding stand-up paddleboards for the Quebec-based manufacturer Pelican, and which began large-scale production in fall 2014.

Fast forward to today and the firm’s busy period continues basically uninterrupted save for a brief, unavoidable pause during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jacques St-Pierre has retired from Manunor – and he sold the assets of STP Equipment in 2005 to the Sacchi family, owners of Polivinil Spa, and they founded the new company of STP Rotomachinery – and Jacques’ daughter Marie-Michelle St-Pierre now serves as Manunor’s general director and CEO, having joined the firm in 2012. Unlike with some family-owned firms, however, her long-term involvement wasn’t a given. “I basically grew up at Manunor, working here on weekends and during summers while I was in high school, but I wasn’t sure about working here permanently,” Marie-Michelle said. “I studied mechanical engineering at Sherbrooke University and worked at co-op programs in a number of different businesses, big and small, in other sectors, because I wanted to see what opportunities were out there. So, when I finally decided to join Manunor after I graduated, I was fully committed.”

Marie-Michelle St-Pierre. Photo Credit: Manunor

Marie-Michelle currently runs Manunor with her partner Mathieu Rouleau, who has been with Manunor as technical director since 2012. The couple became Manunor’s owners in 2017.

WHERE IT’S AT

Manunor currently employs about 45 workers, has annual sales that exceed $10,000,000, and has a long list of North American customers, primarily in Quebec, Ontario, and the northeastern U.S. “We make more than 300 products in more than 20 sectors of activity, including kayaks, paddleboards, containers, tanks, indoor and outdoor toys and games, and parts for vehicles such as buses and ATVs,” Marie-Michelle said. “We do everything to make a finished part, from molding to assembling to packaging; and we’re very active in product and manufacturing process development, thanks to our team’s innovative spirit and expertise, which helps maintain a leading edge. The parts washer program that we developed in 2014, for example, is an in-house proprietary product that introduced an innovative solution to the market.”

The company currently has seven rotomolding machines, all supplied by STP Rotomachinery. The newest machine, installed in August, is a rock n roll rotomolding machine with two sides and two completely independent arms, and is a total of 18 feet long with a 100-inch diameter. “It’s our longest rotomolding machine – and actually the longest currently being used anywhere in Quebec – and it fits between our largest rotomolder, which has a 120-inch diameter, and our smallest, which has an 80-inch diameter,” Marie-Michelle said. “We’ve always used STP machines – the company has a great reputation in the sector and it’s local as well, so parts and service are easy to obtain.”

The company’s new STP Rotomachinery rock n roll machine.
Photo Credit: Manunor

THE ROTOMOLDING DIFFERENCE

For the uninitiated, rotomolding differs from other plastics processing methods like injection molding, thermoforming, and extrusion in that it works in layers. The virgin material and powdered colourant are poured into the mold; the mold is then closed tight, placed in an oven, and rotated at an even speed. In this way, the plastic is laid down in thin layers of even thickness, regardless of whether or not the mold features corners and curves. After the material is baked, the plastic is cooled inside the mold to ensure that it hardens evenly, and then extracted.

That said, not every plastic part is suitable to be rotomolded. “The part chooses the process, not the other way around – it depends on the function you want,” Marie-Michelle said. “Injection molding might be able to accommodate complex designs but it can’t create hollow products. And compared to blow molding, which does create hollow products, rotomolding offers denser walls and thicker corners, which some parts demand. So, if rigidity and strength are important – like for products that are meant to be used in rugged environments or places with high temperature – rotomolding might be the better choice.”

Other advantages, she continued, include low-cost tooling in either aluminum or steel; consistent wall thickness; double-wall construction; high durability, since the parts are molded as one solid piece; high stability; and a great appearance, since rotomolding can accommodate surface finishes such as textures, logos, symbols, and lettering. And unlike competitive processes such as blow molding and thermoforming, rotomolding produces no pinch-off seams or weld lines, which gives a finished product without the use of secondary processes. “It’s the best method for making large, one-piece hollow parts and double-walled open containers such as tanks, kayaks, and coolers,” Marie-Michelle said.

Rotomolding also differs from other plastics processing methods as far as business strategy goes. “There really aren’t many rotomolding shops in Canada, or North America, so there’s enough room for everybody,” Marie-Michelle said. “Most of us belong to the Association of Rotational Molders, we all know each other, and we typically don’t compete against each other – we compete against manufacturers making products in other materials, such as metal, that are better suited to rotomolding. These are the new accounts that we want.” And even here, there’s a built-in limitation as to which new accounts to pursue, based on part dimensions and geography. “Rotomolded parts tend to be large and hollow, which makes them expensive to ship because you’re shipping a lot of air,” Marie-Michelle said. “So, it doesn’t make economic sense for us to pursue new business that’s too far away – in the southern U.S., for example, or western Canada. Rotomolders tend to stick to their own regions.”

BEYOND THE PANDEMIC

Rotomolding machines take up a lot of space, which cushioned the blow at Manunor slightly when the pandemic hit. “We didn’t have to shut any lines down or reconfigure our operations to create social distancing on the floor because our workers were already spread out,” Marie-Michelle said. “Like almost every other manufacturer in Quebec, we had to close for about five weeks in March-April 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic, but after that we were able to carry on as usual.” And even during that forced lockdown, the company remained productive. “We worked with a customer to design an outdoor handwashing station that could be used safely during the pandemic,” Marie-Michelle said. “We designed the part, built the mold, and began rotomolding the product, all in six weeks. We’ve delivered about 3,000 units since then.”

With the second generation of leadership now firmly in place as it marks 30 years in business, Manunor wants to keep growing. “We’re constantly meeting with companies that are making metal parts and working to convert them into plastics,” Marie-Michelle said. “We’re very diverse – anything that can be rotomolded, large or small, we can do it, and we want to build on that and keep expanding our product range.” The company also wants to draw more attention to rotomolding, period. “Rotomolding isn’t as well-known in the plastics space as it should be,” she said. “We want to help change that, and we bring local students in for tours as often as we can, to show them what our process is all about. We love rotomolding and we want more people to love it too.”

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1. Industrial Production of Plastic Products Manufacturing

Plastics production increased the most in February based on the Industrial Production Index on plastic products manufacturing. It increased 3.9% in February from January—a 5.7% increase from February of last year. However, production slowed thereafter, falling to 1.8% in November. Weaker plastics production is consistent with lower economic growth. The U.S. economy had two consecutive quarters of negative output growth in the first half of 2022. Persistent high inflation rates, rising interest rates, and lower disposable income caused a pullback on consumer spending, particularly on interest-rate-sensitive goods. Given that a significant portion of plastics production ends up in nondurable goods consumption, which remains stable regardless of where the economy is in the business cycle, it can be expected that plastics production could increase by as much as 1.0% in December, which is equivalent to a 1.5% increase from December 2021.

2. Plastics and Rubber Shipments

The monthly shipments of plastics and rubber fluctuated this year between $22.1 billion and $22.5 billion. It peaked in April and decreased thereafter. Based on the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, shipments were virtually unchanged in October from the month prior. Healthy demand for manufactured goods, against the backdrop of lingering supply chain issues, caused manufacturers’ inventories to sales ratio to decrease to 1.45 in October form 1.50 a year earlier. To replenish inventory, shipments of plastics and rubber most likely increased by an estimated 0.4% in November. Although shipments likely decreased marginally by 0.1% in December, at this rate, 2022 closed with plastics and rubber shipments higher by 2.0% compared to December of last year.

3. Plastics Manufacturing Employment

The economy’s labor participation rate improved somewhat from 61.7% rate in 2021 to 62.2% in 2022. Still, the U.S. plastics industry continued to experience labor supply constraints in 2022. Some open positions remain unfilled this year. Hiring in plastic products manufacturing rose steadily in the first half of 2022 to 614.4 thousand as estimated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics but slowed in the second half of 2022. It is unlikely that hiring increased significantly in November, with the plastics and rubber manufacturing unemployment rate up 3.1% in November from 2.0% in October. It can be expected that plastics manufacturing employment will be virtually unchanged in November (613.2 thousand) from October (613.4 thousand) and could see a 0.2% uptick in December to 614.5 thousand.

4. Molds for Plastics Trade

The exports of molds for plastics fluctuated monthly between $36.7 million in February to $54.3 million in August. Exports are usually the lowest during the summer months, however, exports of molds for plastics peaked in August before they decreased in the two months that followed. It is estimated that exports in November and December could top $43.7 million and $41.5 million, respectively. All told, exports of molds could average $45.8 million monthly in 2022, which will be higher than $44.5 million last year. While export orders may have increased, lingering supply chain issues have caused longer production lead-time causing export shipments to slow. Moreover, a strengthening U.S. dollar this year through November affected U.S. export growth.

5. Producer Prices in Plastics Material and Resin Manufacturing

Plastics material and resin prices peaked in June this year based on the Producer Price Index on plastics material and resin manufacturing from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It continued to fall since as supply eventually caught up with rising demand. Plastics converters enjoyed a respite from the double-digit increase in resin prices in 2021. It is projected that the price index could decrease by 1.6% in December—an 8.6% decrease from December 2021. With rising capacity and softening demand, it can be expected that the monthly percentage change in the Producer Price Index on plastics material and resin manufacturing will be less volatile.

6. Industrial Capacity in Plastics Material and Resin Manufacturing

The industrial capacity in plastics materials and resin manufacturing in the U.S. has been increasing this year. However, capacity is expected to have increased by 1.9% in 2022—lower than the 7.1% capacity increase in 2021. Lower growth rates in industrial capacity this year, against the backdrop of falling resin prices, suggest that there is sufficient plastics material and resin supply. This could explain the decrease in the capacity utilization rate in plastics material and resin manufacturing from February to October. The capacity utilization rate could increase to 81.0% in November and December 2022 to cover lower inventories. Latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows manufacturers finished goods inventories in plastics and rubber products decreased in the last three months ending in October. Any improvements in inventories would most likely be minimal in November and December.

7. Plastics Machinery Imports

It is expected that imports of U.S. plastics machinery in 2022 will be less than in 2021. The latest data from the U.S. International Trade Commission show that imports increased in October by 0.2% from September. Since March, however, the underlying trend in U.S. plastics machinery imports has been downward sloping. If this trend continues, 2022 imports could average $150.3 million per month, which would be 51.5% lower than last year’s monthly average. Demand for plastics machinery has softened in 2022—a reversal from the robust demand in 2021. The value of U.S. plastics machinery imports could total $1.8 billion in 2022—well below the $3.5 billion last year. Higher interest rates have slowed capital expenditures—particularly on industrial equipment investment spending. Even with a strong U.S. dollar in recent months, which is a boon for imports, the slowdown in plastic products manufacturing, against the backdrop of a weaker macroeconomic outlook, negates the demand for higher imports of equipment.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/marcinm111

The Canadian federal government’s ban on the six common categories of single-use plastic items began to take effect on Dec. 20.

The government will phase-in the bans, starting on Dec. 20, with the prohibition on the import and manufacture of single-use plastic checkout bags, cutlery, foodservice ware made from problematic plastics, stir sticks, and straws; the prohibition on the sale of these items will come into force in December 2023.

In June 2023, the manufacture and import of ring carriers in Canada will be prohibited and the sale of these items will be prohibited in June 2024.

Exceptions to the ban on straws will allow single-use plastic flexible straws to remain available for people in Canada who require them for medical or accessibility reasons. This includes for use at home, in social settings, or in healthcare settings, such as hospitals and long‑term care facilities. All other types of single-use plastic straws will be prohibited.

2. UN calls for an end to global plastic pollution

In a move that could have major repercussions on how plastics are regulated and used around the world, representatives from 175 United Nation countries endorsed a resolution in March at the UN Environment Assembly, the UN’s top environmental body, to end plastic pollution.

The resolution, based on three initial draft resolutions from various nations, establishes an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which will begin its work in 2022, with the goal of completing a global, legally binding agreement by the end of 2024.

The first round of INC talks was held from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2 in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Representatives from 160 countries were involved in this meeting, which is the first of five that are scheduled to take place over the next two years.

3. ‘Golden Design Rules’ created for plastic packaging

In a bid to help companies adjust packaging design “to contribute to a circular economy for plastics packaging,” the Canada Plastics Pact (CPP) and some large brand companies released a list in April of so-called “Golden Design Rules” that are publicly available through a microsite.

According to the CPP, 30 Canadian companies – including 20 CPP partners – have already signed on to 50 per cent or more of the Golden Design Rules. The rules include increasing value in PET recycling, removing problematic elements from packaging, increasing the recycling value in rigid HDPE and polypropylene, among others.

“The Golden Design Rules…were developed by The Consumer Goods Forum’s Plastic Waste Coalition of Action, and they outline specific design changes aligned with globally recognized technical guidelines and targets laid out in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment,” CPP officials said.

CPP said the nine Golden Design Rules are “voluntary, independent, and time-bound commitments” which provide a clear framework to drive innovation and scalable actions that will result in less plastic packaging overall and easier to recycle plastic packaging by 2025.

4. K trade show held in Germany

Photo Credit: Messe Düsseldorf

Approximately 176,000 visitors attended K 2022 in Düsseldorf, Germany from Oct. 19-26 – the first major international plastics show since the start of the COVID pandemic.

The biggest international plastics and rubber trade show in the world also celebrated its 70th anniversary this year.

Next to Germany, most European visitors came from the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, France, Belgium, Poland, and Spain. About 42 per cent of visitors came from overseas, show organizers said, which is nearly identical to the percentage in 2019, but with a difference: the number of visitors from the East Asian region, China in particular, was down due to quarantine regulations in those nations.

According to polling taken of attendees, around two-thirds of all visitors ranked machinery and plant construction first in terms of interest. Fifty-seven per cent said they were interested in raw and auxiliary materials, with recyclates and bioplastics being particularly popular. For 28 per cent, semi-finished products and technical parts made of plastics and rubber were the main reason for coming. And over 70 per cent of all visitors come from top and middle management.

A total of 3,037 exhibitors – including about 20 Canadian companies – took 178,965 square meters, or 1,926,363 square feet, at K 2022.

5. ‘Save Plastic’ social media campaign launched

In November, a group of plastics industry leaders launched a new social media campaign aimed at demonstrating that plastics is a valuable resource that can also help meet the country’s climate goals.

The awareness-raising campaign, dubbed ‘Save Plastic’, focuses on how plastic is essential to having a sustainable life.

Organizations and companies that are involved include the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC), Balcan, Husky Technologies, GreenMantra Technologies, Nexeo, Nova Chemicals Corp., PolyExpert, Styro-Go, and Winpak.

6. Province to build PPE glove manufacturing facility in Ontario

In May, the Ontario government announced plans to build a120,000-square-foot facility in London, Ont., to create a source of medical grade nitrile gloves.

Said to be the first manufacturing facility of nitrile gloves outside of Asia, the plant will provide a secure source of PPE for stockpile and be a supplier to other Canadian provinces and the North American market.

Manikheir Canada Inc. will provide at least 500 million medical grade nitrile gloves annually for up to 10 years.

The facility is expected to employ over 145 people for on-site work, it will create about 300 indirect jobs in the region and up to 1,000 temporary jobs during the construction and machinery set up phase.

7. New CEO for KraussMaffei Group

Li Yong. Photo Credit: KraussMaffei Group

There will be a new CEO and management board chairman at German plastics machinery maker KraussMaffei Group (KMG) effective Jan. 1, 2023.

The company, which is headquartered in Munich, announced in early December that Li Yong will assume the roles, replacing current CEO Michael Ruf.

Yong has been with Sinochem, short for China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., which is the principal owner of KMG, for nearly two decades in a variety of executive, operational, and project management positions.

8. Leadership change at Plastics Industry Association

Matt Seaholm. Photo Credit: Plastics Industry Association

In April, the Washington, D.C.-based Plastics Industry Association named Matt Seaholm, its former vice president of government affairs, as its new CEO.

Seaholm filled a vacancy created when former CEO Tony Radoszewski left the organization in March 2022.

Seaholm has served as the group’s vice president of government affairs for the past two years, and prior to that was the executive director of the Plastics Industry Association’s American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance. Prior to that, he was vice president of public affairs at Edelman. “He is a veteran of political and policy campaigns, having worked on everything from local ordinance fights to statewide political campaigns to national issue advocacy initiatives,” Plastics Industry Association officials said in an April 27 statement. “He has been a public voice on behalf of the plastics industry for more than five years, testifying before more than thirty legislative bodies and being interviewed by more than one hundred media outlets.”

9. New CEO at Davis-Standard

Giovanni Spitale. Photo Credit: LinkedIn

In February, Pawcatuck, Conn.-based extrusion and converting equipment maker Davis-Standard LLC named Giovanni Spitale, a former executive at Boeing Global Services and processing machinery maker Milacron, as its new CEO.

Spitale replaced Jim Murphy, who has been elected as vice chairman of Davis-Standard’s board of directors. In addition, Davis-Standard elected Brian Marston, Bill Barker and John McGrath as new board members.

Spitale’s most recent position was as Boeing’s vice president of commercial parts; prior to that he president of customer service and support at Milacron.

10. Uniloy buys Amsler blow molding assets

In March, some of the assets of the now-defunct Vaughan, Ont.-based blow molding machine maker Amsler Equipment Inc. were purchased by blow molding machine maker Uniloy Inc., for an undisclosed amount.

The move brought Tecumseh, Mich.-based Uniloy into the PET stretch blow molding (SBM) machine market for the first time.

Uniloy purchased the assets from the receiver and trustee in the bankruptcy of Vaughan-based Niigon Machines Ltd.

In a March 8 statement, Uniloy officials said the company will support all Amsler branded PET SBM machines, trimmers, leak testers, and ancillaries. All operations for Uniloy PET will be conducted at the Uniloy headquarters in Tecumseh.

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Tensile testing of the developed bio-based polymer (left) and a sample of polymer film (right). Image Credit: Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Amstedam

Using building blocks that are already commercially available, researchers in the Netherlands have taken what’s being called “an important step” towards the production of fully bio-based, rigid polyesters.

A simple synthesis strategy used by the Industrial Sustainable Chemistry group led by Prof. Gert-Jan Gruter at the University of Amsterdam reportedly overcomes the inherent low reactivity of bio-based secondary diols, resulting in a polyester with good mechanical and thermal properties as well as a high molecular weight.

The research, described in the journal Nature Communications, was carried out with contributions from industry, notably Lego and Avantium. The toy company supported the project as part of the search for non-fossil alternatives for its plastic bricks. Avantium is interested in bottle and film applications.

In general, polyester plastics are synthesized from small dialcohol and diacid molecules, researchers said. These monomers are coupled in a condensation reaction, resulting in a long polymer chain of molecular building blocks in an alternating fashion. The material properties result both from the number of building blocks that make up the polymer chain, and from the inherent properties of the monomers. In particular, their rigidity is key to a firm, strong, and durable plastic. In this regard, the glucose-derived dialcohol isosorbide is unique among potential bio-based monomers. It has a very rigid molecular structure and is already industrially available.

But the problem, the researchers say, is that isosorbide is also unreactive, and in the past two decades it has proven quite challenging to obtain useful isosorbide-based polyesters. “It was nearly impossible to arrive at sufficiently long polymer chains (to achieve a certain ductility) while incorporating sufficiently high amounts of isosorbide (to arrive at a strong and durable material),” they said.

Daniel Weinland, PhD, first author of the paper in Nature Communications, and his colleagues found a solution by incorporating an aryl alcohol in the polymerization process. This leads to in situ, or on-site, formation of reactive aryl esters and a significant enhancement of end group reactivity during the final stage of polyester synthesis when the isosorbide’s low reactivity inhibits chain growth in traditional melt processes. As a result, high-molecular-weight materials could be produced with incorporation of high fractions of the bio-based, rigid secondary diol, even up to 100 mol%. For the first time, the researchers said, high-molecular-weight poly(isosorbide succinate) can be produced, the polyester obtained from isosorbide and succinic acid. The resulting strong plastics outperform existing plastics like PET in terms of heat resistance, an important attribute when washing re-usable bottles typically at 85°C, or 185°F. The isosorbide-based polymers also show promising barrier and mechanical properties that can outperform common fossil-based materials, the researchers added.

The novel polymerization approach described in the paper is characterized by operational simplicity and the use of standard polyester synthesis equipment. And it suits both existing and novel polyester compositions, and the researchers foresee the application of similar methods in other classes of polymers, such as polyamides and polycarbonates.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Aleksej

Globally, waste pickers are responsible for collecting and recovering – from homes, businesses and landfills – up to 60% of all plastics which are then recycled. These workers do more than any other people to prevent plastic contaminating the environment, yet their work is rarely valued and they struggle to earn a decent living.

Despite recycling the waste of others, waste pickers often lack waste collection services themselves. They suffer the consequences of pollution more than most by inhaling fumes from burning plastic and breathing air and drinking water that is heavily contaminated with microplastics. Waste pickers are also vulnerable to abuse and exploitation as a result of being women, immigrants, indigenous or belonging to ethnic minorities and oppressed castes.

Punta del Este, an affluent resort town in Uruguay, is hosting the first intergovernmental negotiations to create a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution on land and sea. Punta normally hosts high-end tourists from Argentina and Brazil. Now, it is welcoming more than 1,000 delegates and observers from 160 nations and a range of environmental campaign groups, plastic industry representatives and waste pickers.

Waste pickers are known in Uruguay as clasificadores and can be found working in Punta’s nearest municipal landfill, a 20 minute-drive from the convention centre where the negotiations will take place. There, and in Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo, clasificadores have long carried out the lion’s share of plastics recycling. They scour landfills and bins and organise collections from homes and businesses before sorting recyclable from non-recyclable waste.

Clasificadores risk their lives doing this. In August 2022, a waste picker was found dead at Punta’s landfill – crushed by a reversing dump truck. While such deaths are thankfully rare, accidents, chronic illnesses and low life expectancy are common among waste pickers. Nevertheless, a new book by one of the authors, Patrick O’Hare, Rubbish Belongs to the Poor, shows how recyclable waste also offers a readily accessible source of income and provides a refuge for the poor and marginalised.

Historic recognition

Waste pickers are increasingly included in municipal waste management plans and services in various countries. Beyond collecting and sorting waste, waste pickers have also taken roles teaching people how to recycle waste properly. Multinational companies which generate a lot of plastic packaging, including Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Unilever and Nestlé, recently signed up to an initiative which would commit them to improving the rights of people in the informal waste sector who recover plastic to make recycled packaging with. It’s hoped this process might eventually lead to manufacturers buying recycled material directly from waste pickers, fairer prices and improved health and safety standards.

Now, waste pickers are also partners in devising the global treaty to curb plastic pollution. A ten-strong delegation from the International Alliance of Waste pickers (IAW) is attending the negotiations in Uruguay to influence the treaty as it takes shape. The IAW demands to be represented in all future treaty discussions – and, for this reason, has called for ring-fenced UN funding for six waste pickers from different regions to attend subsequent meetings.

Efforts to clean up pollution will fail if new plastics continue to be produced at an increasing rate as forecasts suggest is likely. The treaty is expected to introduce new rules forcing plastic manufacturers to change the design of their products and restricting their production of non-recyclable plastic. It will also seek to increase recycling rates, since only around 9% of the plastic that has ever been produced has been recycled. The IAW are keen to ensure that waste pickers benefit from these changes.

Plastics are more likely to find their way into and pollute the environment if there is no market for recycling them. Unrecyclable or difficult to recycle materials, which are likely to face production limits in the treaty (such as expanded polystyrene and sachets), offer little value to waste pickers. Where plastic bans and caps would affect livelihoods, the IAW has called for waste pickers to be given opportunities to transition into other forms of work.

At the negotiations for a global plastics treaty, waste pickers are asking to be involved in how plastic waste and recycling policies are designed and implemented within countries and internationally. It may be too late for reforms to benefit the Uruguayan clasificador who died in August. Yet if negotiations in Punta del Este end with overdue recognition of the role of waste pickers in tackling plastic pollution, this will be a small step towards honouring his memory.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Martin Capek

Scientists with the University of Chicago have discovered a way to create a material that can be made like a plastic, but conducts electricity more like a metal.

The research, published in October in the science journal Nature, shows how to make a kind of material in which the molecular fragments are jumbled and disordered, but can still conduct electricity extremely well.

“In principle, this opens up the design of a whole new class of materials that conduct electricity, are easy to shape, and are very robust in everyday conditions,” said John Anderson, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago and the senior author on the study.

Conductive materials are absolutely essential if you’re making any kind of electronic device, whether it be an iPhone, a solar panel, or a television. By far the oldest and largest group of conductors is the metals: copper, gold, aluminum. But about 50 years ago, scientists were able to create conductors made out of organic materials, using a chemical treatment known as “doping,” which sprinkles in different atoms or electrons through the material – the advantage being that these materials are more flexible and easier to process than traditional metals. The problem, however, is that they aren’t very stable; they can lose their conductivity if exposed to moisture or if the temperature gets too high.

But fundamentally, both of these organic and traditional metallic conductors share a common characteristic. They are made up of straight, closely packed rows of atoms or molecules. This means that electrons can easily flow through the material, much like cars on a highway. In fact, scientists thought a material had to have these straight, orderly rows in order to conduct electricity efficiently.

The University of Chicago team began experimenting with some materials discovered years ago, but largely ignored, by stringing nickel atoms like pearls into a string of molecular beads made of carbon and sulfur, and began testing; and they were surprised to discover the material easily and strongly conducted electricity. Additionally, it was very stable, which is enormously helpful for a device that has to function in the real world. And perhaps most striking of all, the molecular structure of the material was disordered. “From a fundamental picture, that should not be able to be a metal,” said Anderson. “There isn’t a solid theory to explain this.”

Anderson and his team worked with other scientists around the university to try to understand how the material can conduct electricity. After tests, simulations, and theoretical work, they think that the material forms layers, like sheets in a lasagna. Even if the sheets rotate sideways, no longer forming a neat lasagna stack, electrons can still move horizontally or vertically – as long as the pieces touch. The end result is said to be unprecedented for a conductive material. “It’s almost like conductive Play-Doh—you can smush it into place and it conducts electricity,” Anderson said.

The scientists are enthused because the discovery suggests a fundamentally new design principle for electronics technology. Conductors are so important that virtually any new development opens up new lines for technology, they explained.

One of the material’s attractive characteristics is new options for processing. For example, metals usually have to be melted in order to be made into the right shape for a chip or device, which limits what you can make with them, since other components of the device have to be able to withstand the heat needed to process these materials.

The new material has no such restriction because it can be made at room temperatures. It can also be used where the need for a device or pieces of the device to withstand heat, acid or alkalinity, or humidity has previously limited engineers’ options to develop new technology.

The team is now exploring the different forms and functions the material might make.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/marina_larina

This week the [Australian] federal government joined an international agreement to recycle or reuse 100% of plastic waste by 2040, putting an end to plastic pollution. But major obstacles stand in the way.

The most recent is the collapse of Australia’s largest soft plastic recycling program, REDcycle. The program was suspended after it was revealed soft plastic items collected at Woolworths and Coles had been stockpiled for months in warehouses and not recycled.

The abrupt halt to the soft plastics recycling scheme has left many consumers deeply disappointed, and the sense of betrayal is understandable. Recycling, with its familiar “chasing arrows” symbol, has been portrayed by the plastics industry as the answer to the single-use plastics problem for years.

But recycling is not a silver bullet. Most single-use plastics produced worldwide since the 1970s have ended up in landfills and the natural environment. Plastics can also be found in the food we eat, and at the bottom of the deepest oceans.

The recent collapse of the soft plastics recycling scheme is further proof that plastic recycling is a broken system. Australia cannot achieve its new target if the focus is on the collection, recycling and disposal alone. Systemic change is urgently needed.

Recycling is a market

Australia has joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution, a group of more than 30 countries co-led by Norway and Rwanda, and also including the United Kingdom, Canada and France.

It aims to deliver a global treaty banning plastic pollution by setting global rules and obligations for the full life cycle of plastic. This includes setting standards to reduce plastic production, consumption and waste. It would also enable a circular economy, where plastic is reduced, reused or recycled.

The idea behind recycling is simple. By reprocessing items into new products, we can conserve natural resources and reduce pollution.

Unfortunately, the recycling process is much more complex and entwined in the economic system. Recycling is a commodities market. Who buys what is usually determined by the quality of the plastic.

Sitting in the middle of the chasing arrow symbol is a number. If it’s a one or a two, it’s high value and will most likely be sold on the commodities market and recycled. Numbers three to seven indicate mixed plastics, such as soft plastics, which are considered low value.

Sadly, it often costs more to recycle most plastics than to just throw them away. Up until 2018, low value plastics were exported to China. The reliance on the global waste trade for decades precluded many countries, including Australia, from developing advanced domestic recycling infrastructure.

What are the biggest problems?

One of the biggest problems with plastics recycling is the massive diversity of plastics that end up in the waste stream – foils, foams, sachets, numerous varieties of flexible plastic, and different additives that further alter plastic properties.

Most plastics can only be recycled in pure and consistent form, and only a limited number of times. What’s more, municipal plastic waste streams are very difficult to sort.

Achieving high levels of recycling in the current system requires the mixed plastic waste stream to be sorted into hundreds of different parts. This is unrealistic and particularly challenging for remote, low-income communities, which are typically far away from a recycling facility.

For example, throughout the developing world, single-use “sachet” size products are often directed towards low socio-economic communities and low-income families, who may buy most of their food in small daily portions.

Waste from small single-use packaging is notoriously difficult to recycle and is particularly prevalent in remote and rural communities which have less sophisticated waste management infrastructure.

Furthermore, high transportation costs associated with shipping plastic waste to a reprocessing facility make recycling a difficult issue for remote communities everywhere, including Outback Australia.

Failing corporate responsibility

Worldwide production and consumption of plastic per capita continues to increase, and is expected to triple by 2060. For many consumer-packaged goods companies, recycling remains the dominant narrative in addressing the issue.

For example, a study this year examined how companies in the food and beverage sector address plastic packaging as part of their wider, pro-active, sustainability agenda. It found the sector’s transition to sustainable packaging is “slow and inconsistent”, and in their corporate sustainability reports most companies focus on recyclable content and post-consumer initiatives rather than solutions at the source.

Although producer responsibility is growing, most companies in the fast-moving consumer goods sector are doing very little to reduce single-use plastic packaging. Special consideration should be given to products sold in regions lacking waste management infrastructure, such as in emerging economies.

Like a band aid on a bullet wound

The Australian government’s new goal to end plastic pollution by 2040 is encouraging to see. But putting the onus on recycling, consumer behaviour, and post-consumer “quick fix” solutions will only perpetuate the problem.

In the context of the global plastic crisis, focusing on recycled content is like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. We need better and more innovative solutions to turn off the plastic tap. This includes stronger legislation to address plastic waste and promote sustainable packaging.

One such approach is to establish “extended producer responsibility” (EPR). This involves laws and regulations requiring plastics producers and manufacturers to pay for the recycling and disposal of their products.

For example, in 2021, Maine became the first US state to adopt an EPR law for plastic packaging. Maine’s EPR policy shifts recycling costs from taxpayers and local government to packaging producers and manufacturers. Companies that want to sell products in plastic packaging must pay a fee based on their packaging choices and provide easily recyclable product options.

Currently, the burden of managing plastic disposal typically lies with local councils and municipalities. As a result, many municipalities worldwide are championing EPR schemes.

It’s the responsibility of everyone in the value chain to limit the use of single-use plastic and provide sustainable packaging alternatives for consumers. We need better product design and prevention through legislation.

The exciting thing is that businesses transitioning towards a more sustainable way of producing, distributing, and re-using goods are more likely to improve their competitive position.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The new Sony LinkBuds S in Earth Blue. Photo Credit: Sony Electronics Inc.

Sony Electronics Inc. is using recycled water bottle materials to help create its new LinkBuds S noise canceling wireless headphones, which are also available in a new colour variation.

Following the white, black, and ecru colour versions that have been available since May 2022, a new colour, called “Earth Blue,” has been added to the line-up, created using recycled water bottle materials. Multi-point connection is also being brought to LinkBuds and LinkBuds S for seamless connection between devices will be available. Additionally, a new model “LinkBuds UC for Microsoft Teams” will be released with new features that are compatible with Microsoft Teams.

Parts of the body and case of LinkBuds S in Earth Blue are made from recycled plastic from water bottles, which Sony officials say creates a unique, one-of-a-kind marble pattern. It was originally developed by Sony in pursuit of a new design expression with the aim of expanding the potential use of recycled materials.

In addition to the “Earth Blue” model, the entire LinkBuds series also comes with plastic-free packaging (excluding coating and adhesive materials) and the headphones are made with recycled materials from automobile parts.

LinkBuds S “Earth Blue” is an initiative in support of Sony Group’s “Road to Zero.” Sony Group’s long-term environmental plan “Road to Zero” aims to reduce our environmental footprint to zero by 2050. As part of this, Sony established the “Green Management 2025” environmental medium-term targets that took effect in the fiscal year 2021 and will run through the end of the fiscal year 2025. It aims to accelerate efforts such as the introduction of recycled plastics, the reduction of product power consumption, the elimination of plastic from the packaging of newly designed small products, and the introduction of renewable energy.

The annual production of plastic has increased approximately 20 times over the past 50 years, Sony said, while the amount of plastic recycled has remained at approximately 9 per cent. At the time of LinkBuds S “Earth Blue” launch, Sony will become a partner and donate US$500,000 to international NGO Conservation International.

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NASA astronaut Christina Koch handles media bags that enable the manufacturing of organ-like tissues using the BioFabrication Facility (BFF), a 3D biological printer. The BFF could become part of a larger system capable of manufacturing whole, fully functioning human organs from existing patient cells in microgravity. Photo Credit: NASA

When the Northrup Grumman NG-18 resupply mission lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia, for the International Space Station (ISS) early this month, it will be carrying an upgraded 3D bioprinter, the BioFabrication Facility (BFF), as one of its payloads.

The BFF is developed by Jacksonville, Fla.-based Redwire Corp., an aerospace technology developer, and the point of transporting it to the ISS is that microgravity provides a unique opportunity for companies to create everything from bioprinted organs to a variety of high-quality materials not achievable on Earth, because printing complex organ structures in microgravity eliminates the need for scaffolding to support complex tissue shapes. In a microgravity environment, researchers can expect more homogeneous and consistent layering; manufacturing in microgravity also allows them to avoid sedimentation of solutions and aggregation, which can produce thin films with fewer defects, higher homogeneity, and enhanced optical clarity.

Redwire’s goal is to use the BFF as a platform for researchers to print organ-like tissues and begin to prove viability for human organ fabrication in space, and the firm is working with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center for Biotechnology (4DBio³), a biomedical research centre that explores and adapts promising biotechnologies for warfighter benefit, to explore how space bioprinting could help treat meniscal injuries, one of the most common orthopedic injuries affecting military service members. The BFF-Meniscus-2 investigation will leverage BFF and Redwire’s ADvanced Space Experiment Processor (ADSEP) facility, both launching onboard NG-18, to bioprint a human knee meniscus in space that will be studied in a lab following the sample’s return to Earth.

“BFF is game-changing technology that could have significant implications for the future of human health and patient care on Earth,” said Redwire executive vice president of in-space manufacturing and operations John Vellinger. “The ISS provides a critical testing platform to advance these cutting-edge technologies that are enabling critical investigations from commercial users and the scientific research community that will one day extend to future commercial space stations.”

3D bioprinting entire organs in space to benefit patients on Earth is a long-term goal for BFF. In the near-term, BFF is also a valuable tool for drug efficacy testing. BFF can print and culture organoids, an artificially grown mass of cells or tissue that resembles an organ. Researchers can test new drug compounds on these organoids and derive meaningful data which can greatly benefit drug development research, disease modeling research and tissue engineering approaches.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Tetiana Soares

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred on a variety of workplace maladies, including “the great resignation,” “quiet quitting,” “overemployment,” labour shortages and conflicts between managers and employees over returning to in-person work.

Employee burnout and well-being may be at the heart of several of these issues.

Two new studies highlight the importance of social connection in the workplace and illustrate why working from home may not be the optimal workplace arrangement. Hybrid work-from-home schedules may help prevent burnout and improve mental health.

So, what is burnout?

The International Classification of Diseases describes burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

As a diagnosable condition, burnout consists of three symptoms:

1. physical exhaustion,
2. disengagement with work and colleagues, and
3. cynicism for one’s job and career.

For many who have experienced burnout, it can feel just like the metaphor that describes it: something akin to a burnt-up shriveled match stick, cold to the touch.

What causes burnout and how can it be stopped?

According to global research, approximately 50 per cent of employees and 53 per cent of managers are burnt out in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Workplaces are clearly not thriving.

As a social epidemiologist studying contemporary emotional distress within the context of public health crises, I’ve been keen to understand what factors contribute to burnout and how it can be successfully managed — particularly given the ongoing challenges created by COVID-19.

You might think researchers would know everything there is to know about burnout at this point. After all, burnout has been studied since at least the late 1970s. Many of the studies conducted since then have focused on workplace conditions, such as pay, hours, management styles and the nebulous “workplace culture.”

As such, management of burnout has often focused on reshaping work environments and reforming bad managers. While these are of course necessary, it’s not immediately clear that they’re enough.

With the emergence of the pandemic, many people have new levels of awareness of the impossibility of severing work from life. For some, that awareness comes from how tired they are when they get home from a shift. For others working from home, it may come from the disappearing divide between home and office.

In any case, our emotional and psychological well-being is with us whether we’re at work or at home. As such, it makes sense that we take a holistic view of burnout. Social connection is a key driver of burnout.

The social costs and benefits of working from home

In a recent study by my lab at Simon Fraser University, we sought to identify the most important risk factors for burnout. We looked at a range of variables, including the classic factors of workload, satisfaction with pay, dignity in the workplace, control over one’s work, and pay adequacy, as well as more novel variables such as home ownership, an array of demographic factors, social support and loneliness.

In conducting this study, we found that loneliness and lack of social support come out as leading contributors to burnout, perhaps just as important — if not moreso — than physical health and financial security. In summary, the study contributes to a growing understanding of burnout as a social problem driven by isolation.

One potential and evolving source of isolation is the emerging trend of working from home. As many people have had the privilege to learn, there are many benefits of working from home. It enables people to save time on their commutes and have more freedom to get chores done around the house or take a quick nap on their breaks. This means they have more time and energy for friends and family at the end of the day.

On the other hand, working from home means losing out on those water cooler conversations and casual collisions with coworkers — which have a surprisingly profound impact on well-being. Furthermore, considering how important workplaces and schools are for finding and building friendships, a loss of these spaces could have serious long-term consequences for people’s social health — especially if the time spent with others at work is now spent at home alone.

The importance of social connection to health and happiness

To understand the impacts of working from home on mental health, my team conducted a second study to look at differences in self-rated mental health across individuals who work only from home, only in person, or who worked partially in-person and partially at home. We controlled for potentially important factors such as income, hours of work, occupation, age, gender, and ethnicity.

Our results showed that 54 per cent of those who worked only in person and 63 per cent of those who worked only at home reported good or excellent mental health. From these results, you might conclude that working from home is best for mental health — a finding contrary to a growing number of studies that highlight the disadvantages and challenges of working from home.

However, there’s a catch: a whopping 87 per cent of those who reported a hybrid work arrangement — meaning they worked partially in-person and partially at home — had good or excellent mental health.

While the type of work done at home and in-person certainly shapes these trends, our findings nevertheless point to the possibility that hybrid work might give employees the best of both worlds — especially within the context of our first study, which highlighted the importance of social connection to workplace well-being. Indeed, hybrid work arrangements may allow employees to maintain those positive connections with colleagues while also providing a better balance between work and life. It really may be the best of both worlds — at least for those who can work this way.

As employees and employers continue to adapt to the new normal in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our research provides a strong reminder for us to all remember the importance of social connection. It’s all too easy to forget that strong social relationships and communities are the foundation of health and happiness within and outside the workplace.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Natural fiber processing technology expert AdvancedBMT has partnered with industry leaders to develop an innovative new natural fiber supply chain using the company’s patented technology.

AdvancedBMT’s natural fiber material offers a high-performance-to-weight ratio along with acceptable odor characteristics. The fiber material’s aspect ratio and density result in high rigidity with minimal weight. The equipment supply partner Cretes is to provide highly automated manufacturing equipment capable of producing consistent materials in large quantities.

By optimizing natural fiber processing technology, the company seeks to deliver more consistent natural fiber materials compared to existing competitors that already provide natural fibers for use in injection and extrusion molding.

Because of the cost advantage, natural fiber composites are expected to be the material of choice in a number of applications, especially those where weight reduction is valuable. The composites also produce fewer CO2 emissions than competing materials, such as calcium and talc, making them an alternative to non-sustainable materials currently in use. Most importantly, a domestic supply chain that utilizes an abundant waste stream as raw material is expected to provide a stable, low-cost and consistently available material that is not impacted by the volatility of oil prices or competition from international demand.

“AdvancedBMT’s natural fiber polypropylene composites are an ideal combination to achieve a sustainable material that retains high levels of performance,” said CEO Robert Ziner. “The production of natural fiber composite feedstock materials has traditionally been efficient, hampered by excessive material handling and transportation needs. Our proprietary natural fiber processing technologies and model increase the desirability and maximize the economic efficiency.”

The natural fiber composite material is expected to have commercial applications across many industries, especially automotive interiors and computer housings.

finished parts have biomass loadings ranging from 10-30% of the finished components and can be combined with recycled materials to produce a 100% sustainable plastic product.

The company expects to pursue the development of new biocomposites and research additional biomass fillers.

AFTER DRYING, MOLDED WITH EASE

Ziner told CanPlastics that to support the new product, and with the help of a Canadian Agricultural Partnership Grant Approval, the company developed a new patented Technology. So, how hard is it to mix natural fibers and plastics? Apparently, not very, according to Ziner.

“The material processes very well below 190C,” Ziner said, “and shrink is very minimal due to the fibers.”

Natural fibres in plastics are becoming increasingly popular among plastics processors, compounders and their customers, especially in the European Union. This trend has been driven by environmental concerns, and improvements in the quality and availability of natural fibers.

The use of fibers is limited to polymers that can be processed at low temperatures, such as PP, PE and PVC and PLA.

WIth polyolefins, compatibilizers are used to enable adhesion between the fibers and polymer matrix.

There is a strong interest in using natural fibers to reinforce PLA, to maintain the 100% biobased claim while providing unique performance characteristics that would typically be achieved with a mineral or synthetic performance additive like glass fibers or talc. TPS is also well suited as a polymer matrix.

AdvancedBMT’s experience suggests that while using a co-rotating twin screw extruder, polymer should be added through the main feeder while fibers are best added later via a side feeder. Difficulties can arise due to the fibers’ low apparent density, which makes it hard to feed into the extruder consistently, and it is important to consider the fibers’ tendency to clump, which if not managed effectively can reduce the performance of the composite. One way to manage both issues is pelletizing fibers before compounding yet this increases the shear required for dispersion, which can cause tearing and or degradation of the fibers.

Adding fibers also impacts melt flow, typically increasing viscosity. The optimal melt flow of the polymer matrix will depend on the application, ie: injection molding will require a higher mfi polymer than extrusion.

The max loading of fibers that can be achieved depends both on the manufacturing process, for example, 30% can be achieved easily in extrusion, yet would be much more difficult to achieve with injected part. Max loading is also impacted by the fibers ability to bond with the matrix, which can be influenced by the presence and loading of compatibilizers. Even more critical to consider are the desired outcomes: the best balance of properties is achieved at relatively low loadings, so high loadings will only make sense in certain applications – the optimal loading is impacted greatly by the availability and cost of the matrix polymer.

It’s also important to consider that the same mass of natural fibers will fill ~ 2x the volume of mineral fillers meaning there is potential not only to reduce the cost of the additive / filler, but also to reduce the volume of polymer needed, a major potential source of cost reduction.

By far the biggest benefit of natural fibers is the potential for weight savings, especially in automotive and other transportation related industries.  Coupled with good strength and stiffness properties, it’s easy to see the potential for this technology playing a great role in the future of efficient transportation. Another benefit for automotive applications is that natural fiber filled plastics provide improved acoustical and vibration dampening.

For the plastic industry, the fine, non-abrasive qualities of natural fibers, especially those from flax, hemp, kenaf, and wood are a boon and it will also be appreciated that they are non-toxic, and not irritating to the skin or respiratory system. Also, energy costs associated with compounding and molding are reduced compared to traditional, denser alternatives.

An up and coming opportunity is the marketing benefits associated with an environmentally friendly, carbon sequestering, and fully renewable raw material.

Ziner also acknowledges that he has been hard at work overcoming the challenges associated with natural fiber materials saying, “moisture absorption, impact strength compared to glass fibers, processing temperatures, the cost of pelletizing before compounding, these are all things my team is talking to me about day in and day out.”

Ziner is not the first to champion natural fiber’s use in thermoplastics. Faurecia, a large global producer headquartered in Europe has commercialized a range of grades using the moniker “NAFILEAN,” natural fiber filled polypropylene used for the injection molding of structural automotive parts, which has been installed in over 13 million vehicles to date. Many European compounders like Beologic, Tecnaro, Advanced Compounding, Et Al, along with Michigan based compounder RheTech are known to offer natural fiber filled grades of PP and PE.

It seems the team at AdvancedBMT has a vision to expand the possibilities for natural fiber plastics: to supply the industry as cost-effectively as possible and with the highest degree of quality and consistency, increasing competitiveness of the material – and increasing the utilization of natural fibers in plastics. When asked why he is pursuing this opportunity, Ziner responded, “The sample parts we’ve helped our strategic partners create demonstrate to me that the performance of natural fiber filled polypropylene is extremely useful in certain applications and I’m particularly excited about the opportunity in lightweight automotive parts.”

According to Ziner over 1 million tonnes of flax straw from the flax seed harvest is burned annually in North America – enough to support 20 AdvancedBMT facilities converting the leftover biomaterials into plastics.

Roebert Ziner is the founder & CEO at Toronto-based Advanced Bio-Material Technologies Corp.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/warloka79

Plastic waste accumulating in the oceans, soil, and even in our bodies is one of the major pollution issues of modern times, with over five billion tons disposed of so far. But despite major efforts to recycle plastic products, actually making use of that motley mixture of materials remains a big challenge – and one key problem is that plastics come in so many different varieties, and chemical processes for breaking them down into a form that can be reused in some way tend to be very specific to each type of plastic. Sorting the hodgepodge of waste material – from soda bottles to detergent jugs to plastic toys – is impractical at large scale, which means that of the plastic material gathered through recycling programs ends up in landfills anyway.

But according to new research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and elsewhere, there may be a much better way. A chemical process using a catalyst based on cobalt has been found to be very effective at breaking down a variety of plastics, such as polyethylene (PET) and polypropylene (PP), the two most widely produced forms of plastic, into a single product, propane. Propane can then be used as a fuel for stoves, heaters, and vehicles, or as a feedstock for the production of a wide variety of products — including new plastics, thus potentially providing at least a partial closed-loop recycling system.

The finding is described in the open access journal JACS Au, in a paper by MIT professor of chemical engineering Yuriy Román-Leshkov, post-doctoral student Guido Zichitella, and seven others at MIT, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University in California, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Recycling plastics has been a thorny problem, Román-Leshkov explained, because the long-chain molecules in plastics are held together by carbon bonds, which are “very stable and difficult to break apart.” Existing techniques for breaking these bonds tend to produce a random mix of different molecules, which would then require complex refining methods to separate out into usable specific compounds. “The problem is,” he says, “there’s no way to control where in the carbon chain you break the molecule.”

But to the surprise of the researchers, a catalyst made of a microporous material called a zeolite that contains cobalt nanoparticles can selectively break down various plastic polymer molecules and turn more than 80 per cent of them into propane.

Although zeolites are riddled with tiny pores less than a nanometer wide (corresponding to the width of the polymer chains), a logical assumption had been that there would be little interaction at all between the zeolite and the polymers. Surprisingly, however, the opposite turned out to be the case: Not only do the polymer chains enter the pores, but the synergistic work between cobalt and the acid sites in the zeolite can break the chain at the same point. That cleavage site turned out to correspond to chopping off exactly one propane molecule without generating unwanted methane, leaving the rest of the longer hydrocarbons ready to undergo the process, again and again.

“Once you have this one compound, propane, you lessen the burden on downstream separations,” Román-Leshkov said. “That’s the essence of why we think this is quite important. We’re not only breaking the bonds, but we’re generating mainly a single product” that can be used for many different products and processes.

The materials needed for the process, zeolites and cobalt, “are both quite cheap” and widely available, he says, although today most cobalt comes from troubled areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some new production is being developed in Canada, Cuba, and other countries. The other material needed for the process is hydrogen, which today is mostly produced from fossil fuels but can easily be made other ways, including electrolysis of water using carbon-free electricity such as solar or wind power.

The researchers tested their system on a real example of mixed recycled plastic, producing promising results. But more testing will be needed on a greater variety of mixed waste streams to determine how much fouling takes place from various contaminants in the material — such as inks, glues, and labels attached to the plastic containers, or other nonplastic materials that get mixed in with the waste — and how that affects the long-term stability of the process.

Together with collaborators at NREL, the MIT team is also continuing to study the economics of the system, and analyzing how it can fit into today’s systems for handling plastic and mixed waste streams. “We don’t have all the answers yet,” Román-Leshkov said, but preliminary analysis looks promising.

The research team included Amani Ebrahim and Simone Bare at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Jie Zhu, Anna Brenner, Griffin Drake and Julie Rorrer at MIT; and Greg Beckham at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the DoE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), and Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), as part of the Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) Consortium.

Source: MIT

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Igor

Sometimes the solution to a problem can cause other problems down the road. To date, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed some 6.5 million lives, a number that would probably have been a lot higher but for the personal protective equipment (PPE) worn by billions of people that helped slow the spread of the virus. But these PPEs have produced a crisis of a different sort: all the surgical masks, N95 masks, gloves, and other single-use items that have been thrown away.

Since the onset of the crisis in early 2020, demand for PPEs both within and beyond the health sector has skyrocketed. Each month from March 2020 to March 2022, an estimated 129 billion face masks – three million a minute, or 50,000 every second – and 65 billion gloves were used worldwide by healthcare workers and the general public. Other PPEs include surgical gowns, hair and beard nets, shoe covers, plastic wrap, shields, sheeting, sanitizing equipment, garments, test kits, and more.

PILING ON

All of this translates into an almost unbelievable amount of waste, virtually all of it containing plastic. One study shows that more than eight million tons of pandemic-associated plastic waste have been generated globally, with more than 25,000 tons entering the global ocean. In Canada, meanwhile, an estimated 63,000 tons of COVID-19 related-PPE ended up in our landfills between June 2020 and June 2021, with a smaller portion being incinerated due to biomedical contamination. Most disposable PPE is designed for single-use applications and consist of petroleum-based, non-biodegradable polymers. Disposable masks, for instance, may feel like soft cotton, but they’re almost all made from non-biodegradable material such as polypropylene (PP). PPE waste like masks escapes waste streams to become litter in a variety of ways, mainly either by being flushed down the toilet or simply discarded on the street. From there, it gets flushed into storm drains, many of which empty straight into streams, lakes or the ocean, adding to the already serious problem of microplastics and other plastic litter found in oceans and on land. Which is why the scientists behind the statistics predict that, by the end of the century, almost all pandemic-associated plastic litter escaping the waste stream will end up on the seabed or beaches.

Even when PPE waste is disposed of properly within the waste stream, the results aren’t ideal. In most jurisdictions, the stream coming from hospitals and long-term care facilities is deemed Category B waste – tainted by infectious substances – which means it can’t be sent through municipal recycling facilities. Nor can PPEs be recycled through mainstream or curbside recycling programs because the recycling process is so complex; in most municipal systems – which combine physical and biological processes – there is no way to separate the mixture of polymers contained in these products

Instead, the vast majority of PPE disposed in the Canadian healthcare system, and most other systems, is treated as non-dangerous general solid waste, and ultimately landfilled. The remaining fraction is treated as biomedical solid waste and is either disinfected and landfilled or incinerated. But these have their own drawbacks. Landfill sites have existed for decades all over the world, of course, but the rubbish buried in them decomposes very slowly, making them a problem for future generations; and landfills produce secondary side effects as well, including methane emissions, unpleasant views, and rat and seagull infestations which create their own waste problems. And many countries – Canada and the U.S. included – do not handle all of their recycling and waste domestically, instead shipping tonnes of waste overseas. Incineration, meanwhile, produces climate-warming carbon emissions, and also releases toxic air pollutants such as dioxins, furans, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls into the atmosphere; there’s also just too much of the litter – hospitals in Wuhan, China alone burned through 240 tons of single-use PPE every day at the height of the pandemic and barely made a dent in the influx.

A LOW PRIORITY

Unlike the outbreak of the pandemic, the accumulation of PPE waste was predictable. Even as they mandated mask-wearing, governments all over the world were aware that the discarded masks and other PPE waste would accumulate very quickly, but at the outset of the pandemic, as institutions scrambled to carry out measures to protect overwhelmed healthcare systems from collapse, initiatives to deal with this waste weren’t prioritized. Now however, enough time has gone by – and enough discarded masks have been seen blowing around parks and city streets and floating in rivers and seas by enough people – for the problem to gain prominence, with growing calls to develop policies, programs, and innovations to safely reduce these primarily plastic items. But there are difficulties. First, even before the pandemic, the treatment of plastic waste wasn’t keeping up with the increased demand for plastic products, and post-pandemic PPE litter has added immeasurably to the problem – waste management and handling systems have limited capacity designed primarily based on pre-COVID patterns of biomedical waste generation. Pandemic epicenters in particular struggle to process the waste.

And second, because of its multi-material structure and potential contamination by bio-hazards, waste PPE isn’t currently recycled using such conventional mechanical recycling technologies as grinding, washing, separating, drying, re-granulating and compounding.

So, two years after the WHO officially labeled COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020, and many tons of accumulated PPE pollution later, what do we do with all of this waste? We start with the realization that, while posing some challenges, reusing PPE is actually a huge area for growth. In Canada as elsewhere, government agencies, universities, and private sector firms are collaborating on an array of initiatives aimed at implementing recycling initiatives and developing reusable options for PPE.

FIRST OUT OF THE GATE

In February 2021, Canada’s first recycling program for single-use masks and respirators was launched in long-term care and urgent care facilities across Vancouver. The program was created through a partnership between Vancouver-based medical supply maker Vitacore Industries Inc., McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and the University of British Columbia, and provides PPE recycling bins at long term care and urgent care facilities at no cost. Once collected, the PPEs are sterilized by Vitacore before being sent to McMaster to be broken down and repalletized into polypropylene for use as construction materials to reinforce concrete or siding for buildings. And McMaster researchers are looking into ways to expand the possible uses for the repelletized materials. “The PP used in most masks and respirators is of very high quality, so it’s worth trying to recapture, and we’ve been able to divert a significant number of PPEs from landfill or incineration,” said Vitacore president Mikhail Moore. “One challenge to recycling PPEs is separating the various materials, such as aluminum from PP in masks, and we’ve created an automated process to do that.” A second recycling challenge, Moore continued, is to remove pathogens. “We know what type of PPE, and what type of plastic, we’re receiving in collected PPEs from hospitals, but we don’t know what type of pathogens or other bio-contaminants soiling there might be,” he said. “Going through a sanitation protocol to remove those pathogens is a very important part of PPE recycling. The catch at this point is that the sanitization process degrades the polymers slightly, but that step is being refined and we’re getting to the point where our end product is comparable to other recycled polymers that are suitable for non-medical, non-food contact applications.”

Also in 2021, Brantford, Ont.-based chemical recycling firm GreenMantra Technologies Ltd. received $300,000 from the federal government to develop solutions for efficient and cost‑effective recycling of disposable PPE waste. GreenMantra said it will take single-use PPE from Canadian hospitals as a feedstock and use a proprietary process to heat the material in the presence of a catalyst to produce waxes and specialty polymers. The company said its process produces specialty polymers that can be used as additives in construction materials like asphalt, roofing shingles, drainage pipes and plastic lumber, replacing fossil fuel-based additives. “The goal is to develop a stream of feedstock that can be used within our existing and future commercial-scale advanced recycling facilities,” said Domenic Di Mondo, chief commercial officer. “This will be on the scale of millions of pounds per year of diverted PPE with the potential to increase to tens of millions of pounds.” The grant is part of a federal program, called Innovative Solutions Canada, to invest in solutions to challenges from the pandemic, in this case, large amounts of hard-to-recycle PPE such as medical masks, surgical gowns and respirators made with plastics.

TERRACYCLE TUNES IN

Waste management company TerraCycle, headquartered in Trenton, N.J., has been involved in recycling PPEs since long before the pandemic, and has been offering its Zero Waste Box recycling solution – where people can drop off single-use PPE items such as gloves and face masks – since the early days of the crisis. The boxes can be found in numerous public spaces and shops throughout North America and the UK; and in Canada, authorities in the Quebec cities of Vaudreuil-Dorion and Pointe-Claire have set up boxes at various locations, as has Humber College at its North and Lakeshore campuses in Ontario. When full, the boxes are returned to TerraCycle for processing and the collected PPE waste is first aggregated before being cleaned and melted into pellets. The resulting recycled pellet material can then be used by third-parties to manufacture a variety of new products including outdoor furniture, plastic shipping pallets, outdoor decking, watering cans, storage containers, bins, and tubes for construction applications. According to TerraCyle president and CEO Tom Szaky, different programs are in place to sort different types of PPEs into different waste streams for different recycling processes for different end-products. “The face masks, which are primarily PP, can be reduced to a material that can be used for extrusion products, plastic decking, for example,” he said. “Elastomers, meanwhile, are ground down and then mixed with recycled plastics as an additive to provide a flexibility in an end-product. With plastic latex gloves, we separate the latex and nitrile – because those two materials are hard to mix together – and the end materials can go into flooring applications. The metals in the nose strips, which require magnets for separation, are used in barstock or metal sheeting.”

According to Szaky, approximately 90 per cent of TerraCycle’s PPE recycling uses mechanical recycling – which is the process of reducing plastics waste into secondary raw material or products without significantly changing the chemical structure of the material – with the rest being chemical recycling, which does change the chemical structure by turning plastic polymers back into individual monomers for repolymerization. Some regulations dictate what the Zero Waste Box program can and cannot collect, he continued, but otherwise the company works out its protocols on its own with its clients. “Mainly, we’re not allowed to collect PPE from a hospital environment because of contamination issues,” he said. “Other types of contamination are non-COVID-related but facility-related instead, and in these cases we work with the facilities to understand what those contaminants are – for example, paint from a body shop – and then we put protocols in place for that particular situation and that type of contamination.”

ALL ABOUT PYROLYSIS

TerraCycle’s reliance on mechanical recycling for PPEs is common among PPE recyclers, but there is some momentum growing behind a type of chemical recycling called pyrolysis, which is a waste-to-energy temperature reaction that reduces PPE to chemicals, resins, oil, propane, ethylene, and other fuels, and which involves no incineration or landfill use. Researchers at Cornell University, for example, are initiating a pilot project in New York state that will collect waste PPE from hospitals and medical centres and then send it to pre-processing and decontamination facilities in New York or Suffolk counties. There, it will be shredded, sterilized, and dehydrated to become small particles, and then brought to an integrated pyrolysis plant, like one contemplated for Rockland County, north of New York City. According to the researchers, the medium-temperature pyrolysis – about 1,200 degrees F – can deconstruct the plasticized gowns and gloves, which are derived from petroleum, into chemicals such as ethylene, butane, gasoline, bauxite, propene, propane, diesel, light naphtha, and sulfur.

Using a different principle, meanwhile, a team from Swansea University in Wales has developed a process that breaks down the plastic in PPEs into hydrogen using only sunlight. Photoreforming uses nanostructured semiconductors and light to degrade the plastic and any virus attached to it. The byproducts are hydrogen and chemical feedstocks, which can be reused by the chemical industry. No greenhouse gases are produced, the researchers say, and the process is cheap and easy enough to be used by rich and poor countries alike. Research is still at an early stage, but the researchers see the technology as a way to tackle disposable face masks and other hospital waste.

STRUCTURAL CHANGES

As of the fall of 2022, the worst of the pandemic seems to be behind us and it seems clear already that COVID-19 was the primary catalyst for short-term and long-term changes in plastic waste management systems and technologies. In some cases, the jury is still out on these changes. “In Europe and North America, new recycling players are getting into the PPE business, but the important question is, how consistent is the supply and can you build a stable business from it?” said Tom Szaky. “TerraCyle had a facility and process in place before the pandemic, and the pandemic doubled our supply, but we don’t know how long this boost is going to last. I think the levels of PPE being available for recycling will come down as demand for PPEs fall, but probably not to the level of before – we had baseline growth before the pandemic anyway, and going forward a certain percentage of people will decide they feel more comfortable wearing masks in public for good.”

And while PPE usage might decline, there still remains a massive amount of waste products going unrecycled, even now. “It’s estimated that about 99 per cent of PPE waste is still going to either landfill or incineration,” Mikhail Moore said. “It’s a very big problem – our program was able to recover 33,000 kilograms last year, which is the equivalent of 8.8 million masks. This is a good start, but the global is immense, both in Canada and globally.”

In the bigger picture, even before the pandemic, an estimated 77 million tonnes of plastic waste were being mismanaged annually; by contributing further to the challenge of managing municipal waste properly – especially in developing countries where resources and infrastructure are largely lacking – COVID-19 has forced the world to reckon with the gaps and neglected aspects of the waste stream and how we produce, use, and discard of our health care resources, from cradle to grave.

But this is why another legacy of the pandemic might be a more efficient plastics recycling sector, resulting from both large-scale government investment in recycling infrastructure contained in recovery packages and recycling companies’ own streamlining. “What PPE related to COVID shows us is that certain waste streams will index up and down, as opposed to traditional plastics recycling, which is good at creating baseline infrastructure but not at being malleable to ebbs and flows,” Szaky said. “So, I hope that one of the muscles that gets developed  is the ability to grow a supply chain and then reduce it when necessary.”

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Chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Damien Guironnet and graduate students Vanessa DaSilva and Nicholas Wang demonstrated a new scalable process that can upcycle plastics. Photo Credit: Heather Coit/University of Illinois

Working with chemical maker Dow, scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Santa Barbara have developed what’s being described as a breakthrough process to transform the most widely produced plastic – polyethylene (PE) – into the second-most widely produced plastic, polypropylene (PP), which will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

The new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society announces a series of coupled catalytic reactions that transform PE, which is #2 and #4 plastic that make up 29 per cent of the world’s plastic consumption, into the building block propylene that’s the key ingredient to produce PP, also known as #5 plastic that accounts for close to 25 per cent of the world’s plastic consumption.

This study establishes a proof-of-concept for upcycling PE plastic with more than 95 per cent selectivity into propylene. The researchers have built a reactor that creates a continuous flow of propylene that can be converted into PP easily using current technology, which makes this discovery scalable and rapidly implementable.

The goal is to cut each very long PE molecule many times to obtain many small pieces, which are the propylene molecules. First, a catalyst removes hydrogen from the PE, creating a reactive location on the chain. Next, the chain is split in two at this location using a second catalyst, which caps the ends using ethylene. Finally, a third catalyst moves the reactive site along the PE chain so the process can be repeated. Eventually, all that is left are a large number of propylene molecules.

“Think of cutting a baguette in half, and then cutting precisely-sized pieces off the end of each half – where the speed at which you cut controls the size of each slice,” said Damien Guironnet, a co-lead author and a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Illinois.

“Now that we have established the proof of concept, we can start to improve the efficiency of the process by designing catalysts that are faster and more productive, making it possible to scale up,” said co-lead author Susannah Scott, Distinguished Professor and Mellichamp Chair of Sustainable Catalytic Processing at UC Santa Barbara. “Since our end-product is already compatible with current industry separation processes, better catalysts will make it possible to implement this breakthrough rapidly.”

If you’re wondering why this project matters, here’s the answer: Preliminary analysis suggests that if just 20 per cent of the world’s PE could be recovered and converted via this route, it could represent a potential savings of GHG emissions comparable to taking 3 million cars off the road.

“If we are to upcycle a significant fraction of the over 100 million tons of plastic waste we generate each year, we need solutions that are highly scalable,” Guironnet said. “Our team demonstrated the chemistry in a flow reactor we developed to produce propylene highly selectively and continuously. This is a key advance to address the immense volume of the problem that we are facing.”

Dow researchers were also involved in this work. “Dow is taking a leading role in driving a more circular economy by designing for circularity, building new business models for circular materials, and partnering to end plastic waste,” said Dow senior scientist and co-author Ivan Konstantinov. “As a funder of this project, we are committed to finding new ways to eliminate plastic waste and are encouraged by this approach.”

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Plug-in hybrid EV battery tray cover using non-halogenated FR Sabic PP to meet stringent fire safety requirements while eliminating additional thermal blankets and providing significant weight savings versus aluminum designs. Photo Credit: Sabic

You can’t stop an idea whose time has come, especially when it’s backed by overwhelming pressures. Take the global electric vehicles (EV) market, for example. The internal-combustion-engine platform that replaced the horse-and-buggy is itself set for obsolescence with the evolution of the EV, backed by governments around the world that have adopted policies that promote EVs as part of their sustainability efforts, even mandating their implementation in the decades ahead.

It might just be the biggest change in the history of automobiles and light trucks, and the Canadian government is firmly behind it, having identified EVs as a key contributor to achieving its transportation sector greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 12 megatonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030. EV sales in Canada grew almost 60 per cent last year, with 86,000 battery-electric and plug-in hybrids sold, accounting for 5.2 per cent of new registrations. That compares with 54,000 in 2020, making up 3.5 per cent of total vehicle registrations. Five years ago, EVs made up fewer than one in 100 new cars sold; in 2021, they made up one in 20. And the federal government has announced an aggressive transition plan: Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault intends to mandate that by 2026 electric vehicles make up one in five new passenger vehicles sold. By 2030, it must be at least half, and by 2035, all new vehicles sold must run on batteries. And it will be enforced: Guilbeault is currently developing a national sales quota system that will impose penalties on dealerships or car companies that don’t sell enough EVs.

Automakers are also on board. Many have detailed plans to electrify large portions of their fleets over the next decade, with some announcing goals for fully electrified lineups within five years. Dozens of pure battery EVs are set to debut by the end of 2024 if all goes according to plan, and even some parts makers are now entering the space: Canadian firm Magna International Inc. recently partnered with Israeli startup REE Automotive Ltd. to create its own EV; the project involves jointly building the EVs using REE’s platform, which can be modified to support light commercial vehicles.

The rapid expansion of the EV market isn’t all smooth, however. While consumer curiosity and interest in EVs is clearly growing, automakers simply don’t know how many EVs they’ll be able to sell in the next seven to eight years, nor whether they’ll have their factories, EV batteries, and supply chains prepared for to meet their goals, making it harder than usual to plan operations and launches. And inflation is wreaking further havoc, especially by pushing prices of raw materials higher. In Canada, meanwhile, sales aren’t on pace to meet the government’s new targets – at the current rate of growth, EVs will only make up about 15 per cent of new registrations by the end of 2026 – and most auto analysts say that achieving mass adoption of EVs in Canada won’t be solved by mandates alone, since not one country leading the world in EV adoption has a mandate in place. Instead, specific problems will have to be tackled, including solving global supply chain challenges – including a worldwide shortage of microchips that has bedeviled factory output for the past year and a half – increasing the consumer purchase incentives, and funding more charging stations. Some of these problems are easy to quantify: compared to other jurisdictions, for example, Canada has one of the least comprehensive and ambitious charging infrastructure plans, with a commitment to build just 50,000 public chargers; and Canada doesn’t even rank in the top 20 globally when it comes to purchase incentives, with a federal incentive of only $5,000.

But despite these hurdles, two things are already clear: plastics will continue to be crucial in driving the EV industry forward, and an increasing number of automotive OEMs and parts makers are getting involved by focusing on metal-to-plastic conversion and injection molded plastic parts to better align with the unique needs and environmental benefits of EVs and hybrids. And of that segment, it’s becoming a bigger part of their business. “Years ago, when we took on our first EV program, electric cars were rare,” said Maxwell Preston, communications manager with Axiom Group, an automotive parts molder based in Aurora, Ont. “Now less than 10 years later, over 35 per cent of parts we make throughout all of our locations end up in an EV, and that metric grows each year.”

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

With all of the noise about EVs, it’s a funny twist that one of the challenges in developing them is overcoming noise. EV engines are basically silent, meaning that even subtle noises like hums and whistles from the wind and road become more noticeable, and this is why sound absorption and noise dampening are hugely important – and why, according to a recent study conducted by BIS Research, the acoustic and thermal insulation material market to overcome Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) – the measure of how pleasant a car or truck is experienced while driving – for EVs will grow 21 per cent annually over the next decade.

And the solutions required to eliminate cabin noise – including seals, sound insulation foam, and TPE panel plugs – fall right in the wheelhouse of plastic product and rubber manufacturers. Axiom Group, for example, makes a one-piece hybrid acoustic wheel liner, with fabric overmolded into a large single component, that’s designed to reduce cabin noise in the vehicle.

But everything in automotive is a balancing act. “Manufacturers can’t sacrifice performance properties like lightweighting for anti-squeak adjustments,” said Mike Hale, global plastics technology director at Trinseo. “As the industry continues to embrace plastics for automotive use, NVH has the potential to save the vehicle industry time and money, but only if these polymers can maintain essential performance properties.”

As an example, EPDM rubber is considered by many to be the best material to stop sound, but it’s also heavy compared to thermoplastic vulcanizate alternatives. Which are where new materials that combine sound insulation properties with the lightweighting attributes come into play. An early developer was Cooper Standard, which released its Fortrex material to the market in 2017 – the proprietary blend of EPDM and TPV provides a two-decibel reduction in noise, which company officials said represents about 50 per cent, and is lighter weight than a traditional EPDM. Recently, it’s also been shown that polymers like acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) can be modified to minimize excess sounds while retaining the same performance properties, including lightweighting.

LIGHTEN UP

Another area of emphasis with EVs is actually an old one with a new twist: weight reduction, as car companies look to extend the range of batteries for EVs. Utilizing plastic injection molded components has been standard practice in automobile manufacturing for decades now – because plastics are so lightweight, they can help reduce the weight of vehicles by replacing heavy materials like metal and glass to save energy and improve safety. Compared to similar components made from other materials, plastic components can often weigh 50 per cent less. This means lightweight plastics today can make up 50 per cent of a vehicle’s volume, but only about 10 per cent of its weight. While any car can use lightweight materials, they’re especially important for EVs to help offset the weight of electric motors and batteries – which make them weigh more than vehicles with traditional engines – and to enable performance. The lighter the vehicle, the longer it can run, and without lightweight components, EVs won’t have the range necessary to attract a critical mass of consumers. One way that OEMs are reducing body weight — in both EVs and traditional vehicles — is using polymer composites for structural components. For example, the insides of doors, fenders and liftgates increasingly are being reinforced with glass-fibre and/or carbon-fibre composites, which reduce the need for metal reinforcement. And common applications currently associated with EV drivetrains include electric motors, batteries, connectors, power control units, thermal management systems, and more.

All of which is why the use of plastics in EVs is plastics is projected to grow at a CAGR of 26.9 per cent to reach a market size of over US$2.5 billion by 2025, up from $US767 million in 2020. The key players in the plastics for electric vehicle market include BASF, Sabic, Dow, Lyondellbasell, DuPont, Trinseo, Covestro, Solvay, Lanxess, LG Chem, and Asahi Kasei. To cite just one example of what they’re accomplishing, Sabic has developed a plug-in hybrid EV battery cover that’s said to be the first thermoplastic solution for a battery cover that meets stringent new fire safety requirements that went into effect earlier this year in China. According to Sabic, the non-halogenated FR 30 per cent GR polypropylene copolymer (PPc) is 40 per cent lighter than the outgoing metal solution, offers inherent electrical insulation, seals against moisture intrusion, and won’t corrode. The 1.6-meter-long injection molded part is 2.0 millimeters thick and reduces cost and mass, increases safety, and contributes to extended driving range and sustainability. The cover is in production for Honda, and recently won an award from the automotive division of the Society of Plastics Engineers.

BATTERIES INCLUDED

Speaking of batteries, a widely felt industry challenge for EVs continues to centre on battery life since – to repeat – the lighter the vehicle, the longer it can run. Today’s EVs, however, rely on heavy lithium-ion batteries that can increase the weight of a car by as much as 35 per cent; and one of the largest, the battery for the fully-electric Mercedes-Benz EQC comes in at a whopping 1,400 pounds. By replacing heavy electric cells with lightweight plastic components, however, automakers can extend the capacity of EVs to stay charged and extend their driving range. But realizing that potential will depend on battery makers’ ability to design for the large volume production of lithium battery packs that are smaller, lighter, and less expensive. And also, as the heart of the EV system, the battery must remain cool during operation. “Both vehicle reliability and range rely on the battery technology utilized, and so any threats tobattery performance, like hot climates for example, have to be countered,” said Tony Austin, technicaldirector at Europe-based parts molder Rosti. “Essentially, anincrease in ambient temperature results in reduced e-mobility battery life – the hotter thebatteries, the faster chemical reactions will occur and the faster the battery will discharge.Independent tests have shown that the self-discharge rate of a battery doubles every time thetemperature rises by 10°C. It’s also imperative that batteries are protected from overheating,which is possibly the worst scenario, as it will lead to rapid damage.”

There are a range of materials to choose from when designing battery enclosures for EVs; in particular, flame-retardant polycarbonate (PC) and ABS blends are increasingly preferred over other semicrystalline polymer classes like polyamide and PBT. Amorphous resins have clear advantages in that they experience minimal changes over a wide temperature range, and post-shrinkage is negligible. The use of PC and PC blends is said to be especially advantageous, since those materials also have high impact strength over a wide temperature range, high thermal management stability, good flame resistance, and a low coefficient of linear thermal expansion. Covestro, for example, offers Makrolon and Bayblend for electric vehicle battery modules.

And in a welcome development here at home, battery manufacturing for EVs is getting substantial investment from the Canadian government, as the country has the natural resources such as lithium to make this component at mass scale.

A NEW BUSINESS MODEL

EV’s aren’t just changing the automotive landscape, they’re also changing the actual business of making vehicles. “In the past, an OEM could reconfigure an existing internal combustion engine-powered vehicle with an electrified powertrain,” said Joe McCabe, president and CEO of AutoForecast Solutions, in Chester Springs, Pa. “If the vehicle didn’t sell as expected, that variant was eliminated from the portfolio. This had a minimal impact on the supply chain, with most of the parts remaining the same.” But the introduction of dedicated EV platforms forces the propulsion system to dictate design, McCabe noted. “Part count and content per vehicle will decline, replaced by fewer, larger modules,” he said. “Manufacturing processes will simplify, creating less demand for tools and machinery. All of these issues will create new challenges and change the competitive landscape for the supply base.” Most suppliers are used to working with a traditional supply chain, McCabe continued, supporting a traditional internal combustion engine-powered vehicle. “These vehicles have thousands of parts, but to accomplish new carbon footprint targets, EVs will force the number of parts per vehicle to dramatically decrease,” he said.

With the evolution of EVs – and the launch of Tesla and about a half-dozen other new automakers – sending a charge through the industry, parts suppliers will have to be even more nimble than before to stay competitive. In a move that marks a transition from battery EVs to fuel cell EVs, Guelph, Ont.-based parts molder Linamar Corp. partnered with Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver last year to develop and sell hydrogen fuel cell powertrains for use in light-duty electric vehicles, including passenger cars, SUVs, light trucks and commercial vans up to five tons in North America and Europe; and earlier this year they unveiled a concept hydrogen fuel cell powered class 2 truck chassis displayed in a RAM 2500 truck chassis.

There are opportunities, yes, but parts suppliers also have to be careful. “There are no shortages of new OEMs entering the EV marketplace and having suppliers invest millions into tooling, design, and development, only for those cars to never actually be delivered before the OEM closes its doors, leaving suppliers with large investments for vehicles that will never make production,” said Maxwell Preston. Another challenge in dealing with an automotive industry that’s in transition is that, as companies like Tesla try to establish markets, the traditional supply chain is becoming diluted and fractured, with more companies bringing out cars in smaller volumes, and fewer trim levels. “Most suppliers are used to working with a traditional supply chain, supporting a traditional IC-powered vehicle,” Joe McCabe said. “Suppliers are now facing a double-edged sword, providing core innovations at low margins while investing in new innovations for future, potentially lower volume applications.”

Another supply chain problem is the continuing shortages of microchips and semiconductors. The pandemic takes part of the blame for this, of course, with many factories, ports, and industries facing closures and labour shortages, made worse from the increased electronic demand with stay-at-home and work-from-home measures. And specific to the EV industry, the increased cell phone and electronic chip demand forced manufacturers to allocate their limited semiconductor supply to cell phones, which have a higher profit margin. Regardless of the factors, the semiconductor shortage is forecast to continue to plague the EV industry going forward. “We’ve definitely been affected by the semiconductor shortage, but we’re fortunate to have the diversification we do – many other suppliers were affected more than us,” Maxwell Preston said.

TOO BIG TOO FAIL

An upside is that governments and established automakers are trying to offer a steadying hand for an industry in mid-revolution. For example, there’s a major push going on to retool assembly lines at major car plants in Canada – including Stellantis, Ford, General Motors, Honda, and Toyota – so they can shift production from combustion-engine to plug-in vehicles, and the government is investing billions to help the processes proceed as smoothly as possible.

And for the part suppliers themselves, a counterbalance to the challenge of trying to understand what systems are going to change in a vehicle that has been fairly consistent for decades is the fact that molding parts for EVs is, in many ways, the same basic process as for internal combustion vehicles. “Design-wise, we may see some alternative considerations for an EV, such as an increased focus on noise reduction, but plastic is still plastic at the end of the day, and whether a grill-guard or front bumper goes on an EV or an internal combustion engine is irrelevant for our business; the learning curve we undertook would be no different if it were a non-EV program, and because we have a mix of EV and non-EV customers, our design teams are constantly flipping back and forth on different platforms,” Preston said. “Special care is only required when handling anything that includes electronics, but this is agnostic to EVs. As far as molding EV parts, our processing machines don’t need special tooling considerations, although as our EV business has grown we’ve invested in specialized equipment to keep improving our capabilities by acquiring rotary presses, larger tonnage machines, automated flame cells, and five-axis CNC machines.”

Historically, the automotive industry runs at a glacial pace, but the automakers’ shift to an all-electric future is moving fast. “In 2019, only 25 per cent of vehicle platforms built globally were dedicated to EV applications,” said Joe McCabe. “By 2028, [we] forecast this number to grow to 78 per cent. This means the industry is at a point of no return, since these dedicated platforms cannot be retrofitted for a traditional engine/transmission powertrain. The OEMs are investing in a too-big-to-fail business strategy, which suppliers will be forced to follow. So, it’s different this time.”

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Aleksei

You may have noticed lately that it can take weeks to book a technician to look at your furnace, or that scheduling an appointment to fix your car means waiting longer than you’re used to.

These are tangible signs that we are experiencing a shortage of skilled tradespeople — a problem that is set to worsen unless it is addressed immediately.

It’s easy to overlook the importance of skilled trade jobs. Unless someone works in trades, or knows someone who does, the reason why there are fewer plumbers still working might not be so obvious — that is, until the faucet starts leaking or a pipe bursts.

We rely on tradespeople to keep our utilities running, fix our appliances, build and maintain our roads and many other things that are central to our everyday lives. Among the many issues contributing to the crisis in the travel industry, for example, is a shortage of pilots and mechanics.

Recovering from COVID-19

More insidious and threatening than longer wait times is the corrosive impact the trade shortage is having on businesses. Many are not only struggling to grow without an adequate number of workers, but are also finding it hard just to keep up with demand.

An October survey of 445 companies by Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters found that the worker shortage has significantly impeded the trade sector’s recovery from COVID-19.

Forty-two per cent of respondents reported their companies had lost or turned down contracts, or paid late delivery penalties because of a lack of workers. About 17 per cent of respondents said that their company was considering moving outside of Canada to find workers. Seventy-seven per cent of companies said attracting and retaining quality workers was their biggest concern.

The scarcer tradespeople become, the harder it will be to keep things running, and the more expensive it is to pay for their work when we can find them. Those issues, in turn, make it harder to attract businesses to Ontario and Canada.

Trade worker shortage

In part, the shortage is a matter of demographics. The baby boomers who built, fixed, maintained, baked and helped keep communities functioning are retiring, and there are more waves of retirement to come in the years ahead. BuildForce Canada projects that, by 2027, approximately 13 per cent of the construction sector will reach retirement age.

The problem isn’t just that these workers are retiring, but that they are not being replaced. The stigma that has developed around being a tradesperson is one reason why this is.

Even though many skilled tradespeople can make far more money than many so-called professionals, most children grow up seeing university as the best, most respectable post-secondary option, and community colleges and trade schools are viewed as second-tier fallbacks.

Immigration — a potential source of new tradespeople — is not making up the gap, either. There are barriers that prevent newcomers from taking up the trades they learned in their home countries and practising them in Canada.

In addition, as the supply of tradespeople continues to shrink, the next generation of tradespeople will find it more difficult to line up apprenticeships because there will be fewer mentors available to train them.

Closing the gap

Fortunately, there are some tactics that can help fix the current shortage of tradespeople. These strategies include:

• Removing obstacles to women and minorities entering the trades, including fostering workplace cultures that welcome them and help them to adapt.
• Providing more hands-on learning, starting earlier in life, to foster interest in the trades and demonstrate how it is possible to be successful and entrepreneurial as a tradesperson.
• Highlighting role models to show how rewarding a career in the trades can be.

Ontario, through its Skills Development Fund, has committed $200 million to connect job seekers with the skills and training they require for well-paying jobs. Much of this fund focuses on the skilled trades by supporting pre-apprenticeship training programs.

As employment researchers, we studied one such program, the Tools in the Trades Bootcamp, presented by Support Ontario Youth on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development.

The program featured 59 intensive, one-day bootcamp sessions across Ontario from September 2021 until March 2022. It included 46 sessions for high school students and 13 for targeted adults, focusing on trades in construction, industry, service and transportation.

Participants reported an improved appreciation for working in the trades, and a heightened intention of pursuing a career in the field. They also established new contacts with peers of similar interests, potential mentors and prospective employers.

While our analysis shows promising outcomes to combat the shortages in skilled trades, these bootcamps are only the start of addressing the issue. More initiatives and programs, both provincially and federally, and from both public and private sectors, are needed to educate and reduce barriers for individuals entering the skilled trades.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Penn State researchers create mechanical integrated circuit materials from conductive and non-conductive rubber materials that sense and react to tactile input, such as force. Photo Credit: Kelby Hochreither/Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

Researchers in the U.S. have developed a soft polymer material that can “think” about what’s happening around it by sensing and responding to mechanical stress without – as is usual – requiring additional circuits to process such signals.

Developed by collaborators from Penn State University, in State College, Pa., and the U.S. Air Force, the technology hinges on a novel, reconfigurable alternative to integrated circuits. For the uninitiated, integrated circuits are science’s current best approximation of information processing similar to the brain’s role in the human body. Integrated circuits are typically composed of multiple electronic components housed on a single semiconductor material, usually silicon, and they run all types of modern electronics, including phones, cars, and robots. According to principal investigator Ryan Harne, James F. Will Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State, integrated circuits are the core constituent needed for scalable computing of signals and information, but have never before been realized by scientists in any composition other than silicon semiconductors. Until now.

Harne’s team has now used integrated circuits in a soft polymer material that acts like a brain that can receive and process digital strings of information, resulting in new sequences of digital information that can control reactions: when the material receives external stimuli, it translates the input into electrical information that is then processed to create output signals. “We have created the first example of an engineering material that can simultaneously sense, think, and act upon mechanical stress without requiring additional circuits to process such signals,” Harne said.

The technology builds upon previous work to develop the novel material that stretches back over decades, including using information from a 1938 paper that described a way to create an integrated circuit by constructing mechanical-electrical switching networks. Harne and his team had already developed a soft, mechanical metamaterial that can “think” about how forces are applied to it and respond using programmed materials, which was outlined last year in a paper published in Nature Communications. That material, however, could only operate on binary input-output signals, not compute high-level logical operations, Harne said; the new material goes much further in functionality thanks to the inclusion of reconfigurable circuits, and can use mechanical force to compute complex arithmetic, detect radio frequencies to communicate specific light signals, and even realize combinational logic.

The researchers are now evolving the material to process visual information in the same way that it does physical signals. “We are currently translating this to a means of ‘seeing’ to augment the sense of ‘touching’ we have presently created,” Harne said. “Our goal is to develop a material that demonstrates autonomous navigation through an environment by seeing signs, following them and maneuvering out of the way of adverse mechanical force, such as something stepping on it.” According to Harne, the material has potential applications in autonomous search and rescue systems, in infrastructure repairs, and even in bio-hybrid materials that can identify, isolate, and neutralize airborne pathogens.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Lumos sp

If you flip over a plastic food container, you’ll see tiny writing on it – something like “AS 2070”. This means the product meets the Australian standard for plastics safe to use for food.

These often unrecognised standards are a part of daily life. Australia has a set of exacting standards which set quality benchmarks for many products. They act as guidelines for design and manufacture of plastic items, shaping the specific polymers used, the ability to use recycled content, and compostability.

There’s a real opportunity to do more here. The issues of plastic waste in our seas and the effects on wildlife are catalysing major public concern. Part of the problem of plastic waste is the difficulty of reusing many types of plastics as the feedstock for new products. We also need stronger incentives to reduce plastic in manufacturing and design.

That’s where standards can come in. The European Union has used standards and legislation to nudge the plastics industry towards a true circular economy. This means minimising the use of plastic where possible, while ensuring old plastics can be turned into new products rather than turning into waste which could end up in our seas. We can do the same, harnessing standards to reduce plastic waste. How? By requiring companies to minimise plastic packaging and setting guidelines for products to be made of specific polymers while avoiding others.

Our new research found a total of 95 standards. Nine of these are Australian. This means there is a great opportunity for Australian experts to get involved in the national and international standards development process.

Why do standards matter?

Think of standards as guidelines and codes of practice. Standards give product manufacturers a framework for the minimum quality and safety required to be able to sell them in Australia. They also help to provide a common language and enhance compatibility and efficiency across markets.

Globally, standards affect an estimated 80% of the world trade. They have real impact. If a product cannot meet the applicable standard in the country or jurisdiction it is intended for, it won’t be accepted.

Plastic recyclers can use standards to ensure their products meet specific requirements, and so provide quality assurance for manufacturers who buy the recycled plastics to make other products.

Standards for plastic reuse can ensure certain products can be used over and over. Labelling standards can also help us as consumers know which items we can and can’t recycle.

Both industry and government may choose to introduce standards. Standards can also increase consumer confidence, promote social acceptance of recycled products and maintain or increase the value of recycled plastics – a vital step towards a circular economy.

By bringing in new standards for other stages of the plastics supply chain, we could leverage this powerful tool and help standardise parts of the emerging international circular economy in plastics.

Standards could help us reduce waste at all stages of a product’s lifecycle, from design to manufacture to recycling to reuse.

What did we find?

We worked with Standards Australia to map existing plastics standards around the world. We also went looking for missing links which, if filled, could help to better manage plastic waste.

The majority of existing plastic standards – both Australian and international – are focused on recycling and recovery or waste disposal parts of plastic’s lifecycle.

To create a true circular economy for plastics, we’ll need to update existing standards and develop more which specifically focus on the early stages of plastic production, such as design or creation of the basic building blocks of plastics.

Think of nurdles, the pea-sized plastic beads produced in their trillions as a key first step to making many plastics. When nurdles spill into the sea, they’re very bad news for wildlife. If we create standards focused on these steps, we can help reduce their impact.

Adding more standards could also help us tackle the challenges around making products reusable and recyclable, as well as cutting how much packaging is needed for products.

We can also use them to help assess biodegradable products, to ensure they don’t make existing waste or recycling streams harder to process.

And importantly, standardising the labelling of products could help us as consumers. Imagine if labels on plastic products included the amount of recycled plastics, as well as a rating of how recyclable or compostable the product was.

This would give manufacturers incentives to make simpler products better able to be recycled. It would also avoid specific problems such as multi-layer plastics which are not cost effective to recycle.

In short, plastic standards are an often overlooked way for us to improve how we use and reuse these extraordinarily versatile modern materials.

Plastics don’t have to become environmentally destructive waste. They can be almost endlessly useful – if we require it.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Photo Credit: Borealis

It’s becoming more and more common for plastics firms – particularly material suppliers and recyclers – to collaborate to boost the sustainability of products and processes within the plastics industry.

A recent case in point? Austrian chemical company Borealis and Trexel, an expert in foaming injection and blow molded parts, have co-developed a new plastic bottle based on a grade from the Bornewable portfolio of polyolefins made using renewable feedstocks derived 100 per cent from waste and residue streams.

The lightweight bottle – which will be showcased at the Borealis stand at the K 2022 trade show in Germany in October – is reusable and fully recyclable, and is said to have a significantly lower overall CO2 footprint because it’s composed of renewably-sourced feedstock and produced in the foaming process.

Additional benefits include the fact that converters can not only minimize the use of materials and consume less energy in the production process when using the MuCell foaming technology, which enables greater density reductions, improved mechanical properties, and attractive surface aesthetics – the process can also help fulfill growing market demand for more sustainable packaging solutions.

The larger processing window facilitates its application to a wider range of products, the companies said. MuCell foamed parts are recyclable and can thus be reintroduced into the polymer stream. The lightweighting benefits of foaming have become particularly compelling as the industry seeks to use less energy in production, minimize the use of materials, and also fulfill growing market demand for more sustainable packaging solutions.

“Reuse and recycling are core components of the integrated circular cascade model aligned with our platform, which unites committed players across the entire value chain in accelerating the move to plastics circularity,” said Peter Voortmans, Borealis global commercial director consumer products. “This project is an excellent example of how we are working with industry partners to solve the problem of plastic waste while delivering real value to our customers. Combining our polymers and recycling expertise with Trexel’s material processing know-how enables us to re-invent essentials for sustainable living.”

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Photo Credit: Balcan Innovations

Sometimes a name change doesn’t mean much – early Canadian smartphone maker Research In Motion’s rebranding as BlackBerry in 2013 didn’t really alter the product line all that much. Other times, however, it can tell you a lot.

When Canadian film extruder Balcan Plastics Ltd. changed its name recently to Balcan Innovations Inc., it capped a series of moves over the past year that have marked an unprecedented growth phase for the 55-year-old company, which traditionally made plastic packaging and film for industrial applications, from building materials and wood products to lawn and garden and food and beverage.

The effort began in November 2021, when Balcan acquired Reflectix Inc., a reflective insulation maker headquartered in Markville, Ind., giving it a new foothold in the technical films, reflective-based insulations, and radiant barriers sectors. And then in February 2022 it bought Montreal-based Nelmar Group – comprising Nelmar Security Packaging Systems Inc., Plastixx Extrusion Technologies Inc., and Plastixx FFS Technologies Inc. – which is a supplier of extruded film, form-fill-seal films and plastic valve bags, and tamper-evident security packaging; and also Covertech Fabricating Inc. of Toronto, which manufactures rFOIL insulation. Topping it off, two months later, Balcan announced the opening of its inaugural U.S. manufacturing facility following the completed installation of its first extruder and printing press in Pleasant Prairie, Wis.

All told, then, it’s not quite the same Balcan you might remember from just a few short years ago. “We’ve been very active over the past two years, and as we look forward, we see a future that requires us to be much more innovative than our competitors, and also much more innovative than where we’ve been, historically,” said Balcan CEO Dano Lister. “The name change from Balcan Plastics to Balcan Innovations represents this aspiration.”

NEW NAME, EXPANDED RANGE

Balcan was founded in 1967 as a family-owned company with a single extruder and the classically entrepreneurial idea of filling a void in a particular product sector: in this case, making films and flexible packaging for Montreal’s growing garment industry. In the 1970s, Balcan Packaging opened its first plant in St-Leonard, Que., a suburb of Montreal, and became one of the first companies in North America to commercialize large web film of up to 40 feet; and a second plant opened in St-Leonard, across the street from the first, just a few years later, increasing the company’s manufacturing and warehousing footprint by more than 400 per cent. By the mid-1980s, Balcan Packaging had become an early adopter of three-layer blown film, and in the 1990s, it developed elastomeric film technology and launched its proprietary stretch hood film – a first-of-its-kind in North America. A third plant opened in Laval, Que., in the early 2000s. “Balcan Packaging’s founders identified an opportunity and built a tremendous company around that over the past 55 years,” Lister said. “The mission was always to develop and deliver sustainable, high-quality film and flexible packaging that protects and promotes the customers’ products.”

And that hasn’t changed, Lister continued. “We have a strong product development organization that’s very adept at customizing films to meets customers’ needs – in particular, customers who are using those films in demanding downstream applications, either automated filling or packaging lines or converting lines that require consistency,” he said. “Across our plants, we control every step of our R&D, manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution processes in-house, and incorporate redundant fabrication capabilities for control and efficiencies. The vertically integrated operations enable us to offer consistent, high-quality products at competitive prices.”

What has changed is that offering plastic packaging and film is no longer all that Balcan does. First, as a company, Balcan Packaging no longer exists. “The assets and customers of the old Balcan Plastics are still there, and we still use the brand name for our custom film and flexible packaging products, but it’s now become the plastics division of Balcan Innovations,” Lister said. Second, some of the recently acquired companies have products that overlap with Balcan’s plastic packaging operations, while others don’t. “With our Nelmar security packaging operations, there’s really no end product overlap,” Lister said. “With Plastics FFS, there’s direct overlap: Balcan Packaging had historically served the same type of customers as Plastics FFS, and going forward there’s some good integration opportunities for us in bringing these two businesses together to help refine our focus around that particular type of packaging, which is primarily more towards the industrial space and automated filling operations, which has very precise requirements.”

PURSUING PLASTICS

Balcan’s plastics packaging operation, meanwhile, is still growing on its own. In February, the company announced the installation of a new three-layer Windmöller & Hölscher (W&H) extrusion line in St-Leonard. The line is now fully operational, and joins a large fleet of extrusion machinery in the St-Leonard and Laval facilities. The company has been buying from W&H for a number of years now. “We have W&H lines in our facilities that date back at least 10 years,” Lister said. “As we’ve developed a need for films with higher technical consistency and consistently high output, and the ability to control thickness and quality of film on the output, we saw W&H as being a partner that really delivers those enhanced efficiencies and outputs – they’re a leader in this space. Our newest line will help us grow our output capacity and stay ahead of demand for high-performance films.”

And Balcan Innovations’ new 165,000-square-foot facility in Wisconsin – which was special-built, Lister said, towards the requirements of higher end film production and printing – was purchased in June 2021 to support the evolving needs and growth of the company’s American customers. Following a six-month sprint filled with extensive facility construction and rehabilitation, and investments in new machinery, the state-of-the-art plant is now operational, but still a bit of a work in progress: Within the coming year, it will fill out its growing fleet of three- and five-layer extruders, along with a series printing presses, converting equipment, warehousing space, and loading access via truck and rail. “We’ve supplied the U.S. market for a long time, and we have some great blue-chip customers there and we also see the potential to develop new accounts,” Lister said. “Wisconsin is a business-friendly hub state, and state leaders provided a supportive package to us to help us locate there. We’re in a robust industrial park in Pleasant Prairie, with great manufacturers in the area, very good infrastructure, close to the freeways, and we’re along the railway to receive raw material.”

ADAPTING TO THE PRESENT

You might have noticed that Balcan’s growth spurt coincided with the worst global pandemic in over a century. But that didn’t slow the company down much, if at all. “We worked hard to maintain safe, healthy operations during the pandemic – we moved everybody outside of our manufacturing operations who didn’t have to be there – with the result that we never had a service interruption during the whole time.” Automation helped the firm stay productive during the crisis, Lister added, and it will probably play a bigger role going forward. In total, Balcan Innovations employs approximately 1,600 workers, with about 1,200 of those in the company’s plastics packaging segments. “Automation is very important, especially as labour gets scarcer,” Lister said. “The only way for us to continue to grow is to have robust operations, which means more automation, and we’re continuing to invest in that.”

The company also takes sustainability seriously. “Our packaging’s products are made from 100 per cent recyclable plastic, and our multi-layer extrusion and lamination capabilities also enable us to produce high strength, recyclable structures with thinner gauge, tight profile variations, and perfect film flatness, offering opportunities for downgauging and subsequent material savings,” Lister said. Also, Balcan has developed a series of products that incorporate post-consumer and post-industrial resins into its plastic film blends. “From industrial packaging and roll stock to shrink hood and shrink bundling film, the level of recycled content can be tailored from 20 to 100 per cent recycled content, depending on the health, safety and performance guidelines,” Lister said. “We also offer products made from renewable biological resources, such as biomass or food waste instead of the conventional fossil resources. With both recycled and renewable materials, we’re pushing the envelope as far as we can.”

After decades of slow, steady growth, Balcan has suddenly leapt forward exponentially in the past two years. But Lister believes there’s a “standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants” quality to its recent growth. “We’re an entrepreneurial story,” he said. “Our roots are in a family that saw a need in the market and filled it, and we’re proud of that and still doing that today.”

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Igor

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, masking has been one of the key public health measures put in place to combat the disease. Since March 2020, billions of disposable surgical masks have been used around the world, raising the question: What happens to all those used masks?

As researchers in single use plastic and microplastic pollution, the onset of a global wave of plastic debris pollution became evident to us in the early days of the pandemic — we could see the evidence even during lockdowns when exercise was limited to short daily walks in the neighbourhood. Masks and gloves were on the ground, fluttering in the wind and hanging on fencing.

As ecologists, we were also aware of where the debris would end up — in nests, for example, or wrapped around the legs or in the stomachs of wildlife.

In Canada, a team of researchers led by conservation biologist Jennifer Provencher studied how plastic debris impacts wildlife. In a study conducted during a canal cleanup in The Netherlands, biologists at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center documented that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) debris would interact with wildlife in the same way as other plastics.

There’s a cartoon circulating on the internet that goes like this: a rat comes home carrying bags of groceries to see two rats laying in bunk beds made from medical grade masks. The rat in the bottom bunk exclaims, “Free hammocks, all over town. It’s like a miracle!”

We shared this cartoon with our colleagues at the beginning of the pandemic, while we were conducting surveys of PPE litter around Toronto streets and parking lots.

We found that within the area that we were surveying — which covered an area of Toronto equivalent to about 45 football fields — over 14,000 disposable masks, gloves or hand wipes accumulated by the end of the year. That’s a lot of rat hammocks.

We set out to understand the breadth of the harm that PPE is doing to wildlife. What we learned is just how many other people were equally concerned.

Jarring images

We conducted a global survey using social media accounts of wildlife interactions with PPE debris. The images are jarring: A hedgehog wrapped in a face mask, the earloops tangled in its quills. A tiny bat, with the earloops of two masks wrapped around its wing. A nest, full of ivory white eggs, insulated with downy feathers and a cloth mask.

Many of these animals are dead, but most were alive at the time of observation. Some were released from their plastic entanglement by the people who captured the photo.

In total, we found 114 cases of wildlife interactions with PPE debris as documented on social media by concerned people around the world. Most of the wildlife were birds (83 per cent), although mammals (11 per cent), fish (two per cent), invertebrates such as an octopus (four per cent) and sea turtles (one per cent) were also observed.

The majority of observations originated in the United States (29), England (16), Canada (13) and Australia (11), likely representing both the increase in access to mobile devices and our English-language search terms. Observations also came from 22 other countries, with representation from all continents except Antarctica.

Weighing costs and benefits

With an estimated 129 billion face masks used monthly around the world, how do we, as ecologists and environmental researchers, tell a global population experiencing a global pandemic to use fewer masks? We don’t.

N95 masks have been essential in reducing the transmission of COVID-19 and, although they are more environmentally harmful than cloth masks, the benefit to health is demonstrably superior.

So, what could we have done better? One thing we noted during our PPE litter surveys is the abundance of discarded masks and gloves in close proximity to public garbage bins.

We hypothesize that a lack of clear messaging from municipalities and provinces about safe ways to dispose of PPE, along with our reluctance to gather near sources of discarded PPE, may have contributed to this global pollution event.

These are lessons that can still be implemented as we continue to cycle through waves of this pandemic; the use of masks is not yet behind us. Our surveys continue as we track an accumulation of PPE debris that will likely find its way into more nests and tangled around the bodies of more animals.

The rise of single use plastic use due to COVID-19 may not have been avoidable. But the rise in plastic pollution could have been mitigated with some investment in public outreach and modifications to waste management infrastructure to allow for masks and other PPE to be disposed of and processed correctly with minimal leakage to the environment.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Towfiqu

Plastics recycling is on everyone’s mind these days, but the problem is that plastic is one of the most difficult materials to recycle. There are many reasons why – most types of plastic look the same, for example, are generally hard to distinguish from one another with the human eye and hand, and most different plastic types are not compatible with each other. And there’s also the issue of separating them from other materials in the post-consumer state. A case in point is plastic and aluminum: because they’re heat-sealed together with a type of glue, it’s difficult to separate the plastic from aluminum in the multi-layer packaging of medicine strips – commonly called blister packaging – so they’re usually discarded as general waste and cannot be recycled.

To avoid having to throw them in the incinerators, a group of engineering students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a chemical recycling method to separate plastic from aluminum and salvage both components. Both materials can then be sent to recycling companies.

The student initiative, called the Green Doctors Program, was created last August when a pharmacist from the National University Hospital (NUH) approached the NUS department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to find a way to reduce medical waste.

Every month, commonly prescribed medicines at NUH account for about 200,000 medicine strips being used up. Overall, about five million strips are thrown away every month in Singapore, said NUS civil and environmental engineering student Sophia Ding, founder of the Green Doctors Program.

After three months of research, the Green Doctors Program concocted a recipe to dissolve the adhesive layer between the plastic and aluminum earlier this year, so that the materials can be separated. The team, which includes about 10 chemical, environmental, and mechanical engineering students, has been testing and working to optimize their solution using medicine strips provided by NUH.

“There were only two research papers on recycling medical blister packaging. So, it was very difficult for us to come up with the methodology ourselves because we had to infer and go into the roots of the materials,” Ding said. “And we had to think about the technology that goes behind heat-sealing, and how to separate the layers without doing much harm to the original materials.”

If all medicine strips in Singapore were to be recycled, 16 tons of plastic and 2 tons of aluminum could be saved each month, she added.

According to the World Health Organization, about 85 per cent of all waste from healthcare activities is non-hazardous, general waste. The remaining 15 per cent is biohazardous waste that is infectious, toxic or radioactive, and must be collected and disposed of safely and carefully to prevent cross-contamination and other public health risks.

The Green Doctors Program also plans to look into how other types of hard-to-recycle medical waste such as IV bags can be recycled.

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Photo Credit: Getty Images/Onfokus

Ultraviolet (UV) absorbents and industrial antioxidants are contaminants attracting growing interest as they are found in a wide range of products that are used daily. These products include sunscreens, anti-aging creams and shampoos, and materials such as plastics and textiles, both domestic or industrial. Primarily, their use is to protect our skin and other consumer goods from the sun’s UV radiation or from naturally occurring oxidizing agents in the air.

Given their high versatility, there are several entry points for these contaminants into aquatic environments. Commonly targeted sources are municipal wastewater treatment plants’ effluents, since they collect water from routine domestic and industrial uses.

To improve the current knowledge of the Québec situation, I studied the evolution of these contaminants in the St. Lawrence River near Montréal during my master’s degree. With my colleagues, we present here the conclusions of this study.

From showers and garbage cans … to fish in the St. Lawrence River

As people shower, rinse water containing residues of sunscreens, shampoo and other personal care products, goes to wastewater treatment plants. Similarly, swimming in more touristy areas can lead to direct contamination of waterways.

Another source is plastic pollution, which enters the aquatic environment through direct dumping, for example when people leave debris on beaches. Indirect plastic discharge also occurs through their presence in the effluents of domestic wastewater treatment plants. As plastics degrade, for example through exposure to sunlight, salinity or the prolonged contact with waves, the compounds they contain (such as UV absorbents and industrial antioxidants) can migrate to the environment.

As soon as they enter the environment, these contaminants can disperse into sediments, water, and even among aquatic organisms, thereby harming biodiversity and ecosystem health. Indeed, some of these compounds are suspected of causing harmful effects, including disrupting the hormonal system in exposed aquatic organisms and promoting coral bleaching.

However, it is important to gain a better understanding of their distribution and evolution in aquatic environments in order to assess the current risk to species exposed to these contaminants.

Contaminants in the river

To better understand the fate of pollutants of interest in the St. Lawrence ecosystem, several types of samples were studied from upstream and downstream of the Montréal wastewater treatment centre. We collected water, suspended matter (which are insoluble particles visible in the water), sediment and tissues from two fish species, northern pike and lake sturgeon.

The analysis results found several contaminants, confirming their presence in the St. Lawrence ecosystem. In addition, affinity for suspended matter was observed, with higher concentrations for some contaminants, indicating the importance of improving our understanding of the risks associated with ingesting suspended matter. Indeed, the latter can be an important route of accumulation for organisms.

In comparing the dominant contaminants in the two fish studied, we observed a major difference between lake sturgeon and northern pike. This discrepancy can be caused by different factors, such as dietary differences between the two organisms. Northern pike is an opportunistic carnivore that feeds on what is easily available. Its main diet consists of yellow perch, suckers, sunfish and others.

In comparison, lake sturgeon is a bottom predator that feeds on small organisms such as larvae, crayfish and small molluscs. This difference in lifestyles leads to a difference in the way the organisms are exposed to pollution and therefore the extent of contamination by certain pollutants. For example, if a contaminant has a greater affinity for sediment, organisms living near the bottom may be more affected by it.

Some contaminants are of greater concern than others

The results also show that BHT, an industrial antioxidant, and its breakdown product, BHTQ, were the only compounds found in the brain of northern pike. The effects of these contaminants on the nervous system of aquatic organisms are not well known at this time. An earlier study, however, demonstrated that BHT can accumulate in the rat brain and can lead to an increase in the number of dead cells. To our knowledge, this is the first finding of these toxic compounds in the St. Lawrence.

Found mainly in plastics and paints, UV328 is a molecule of international interest monitored by the Stockholm Convention for its damaging effects on the liver and its potential for hormonal disruption. Its presence has been detected primarily in lake sturgeon, water, suspended matter and sediments of the river.

More gaps to be filled

The study highlighted the presence of contaminants of interest in the St. Lawrence River and identified UV328 and BHT as being of greater concern. On the other hand, there is still insufficient knowledge to understand the impact of these contaminants on the various organisms living in the St. Lawrence, particularly in terms of the effects of long-term exposures.

Moreover, it is important to remember that aquatic organisms are subject to a mixture of several pollutants and that it is therefore essential to have a better understanding of the consequences of their interactions on the health of organisms.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Andrey Popov

The recent cyberattacks in August on Bombardier Recreational Products and the Ontario Cannabis Store highlight the continuing scourge of cyber criminals and ransomware.

Ransomware is a piece of malware — malicious software — code that gets into an information system and blocks access to the computer or its files until the victim pays to obtain a key, or password. Ransomware was a term that did not enter the popular lexicon until about 10 years ago (and it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018).

It has now evolved, and in 2021, there were 3,729 ransomware complaints registered, with losses of US$49.2 million in designated critical infrastructures alone. The average ransomware payment climbed 82 per cent to hit a record US$570,000 in the first half of 2021.

And it’s only going to get worse. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre reported 2,084 ransomware complaints from January to July 31, 2021 – a 62% year-over-year increase.

For any organization, cyberattacks are not a matter of “if,” but “when”: A cyberattack is inevitable. This forces leaders to ask: Do we pay the ransom or not?

Roughly half of all organizations opt to pay ransom. But that also means that roughly half do not. What makes this an especially wicked problem is that there is no correct answer or clear structure. So the question becomes: Under what conditions should a ransom be paid? And what factors can help leaders make this decision?

Blocking access

There are four core actions that ransomware can execute, embodied in the acronym LEDS: Lock, Encrypt, Delete or Steal. Ransomware can lock, or prevent access to data or an information system, requiring a key to unlock. Similarly, it can allow access, but the data are gibberish as they have been encrypted in place, again requiring a decryption key to make legible. Data can be deleted in place (erased) or sold to the highest bidder.

What makes today’s ransomware attacks especially harmful and insidious is that they often deploy more than one of these effects.

Once malware is embedded in an organization’s system, the criminals contact the victim, usually through an anonymous email, or through the malware itself (pop-up window) demanding immediate payment of a ransom in cryptocurrency, and typically threatening further harm.

Paying the ransom may lead to a decryption key being provided, which, when entered on the pop-up window immediately unlocks the system and anything that has been encrypted.

Considerations before payment

There are two dimensions to be considered when deciding to pay a ransom: the business decision and the ethical one.

Law enforcement authorities, including the FBI and the RCMP, adamantly advise against paying ransom, ever. They do so for two good reasons: first, it rewards and encourages criminal activity. Second, it may further endanger the organization when it becomes known in hacker circles that this is an organization willing to pay.

In other words, it may not make the crime go away and may make you even more of a target.

If the criminals are not a known terrorist organization, then payment of a ransom is not a crime. This might change, as some countries, notably the United States, are proposing enactment of Sanctions Compliance Laws criminalizing all cyber-ransom payments. It might be difficult to attribute the attack, which is why the hackers often identify themselves to their victims.

An honest crime

There is a compelling business case to be made for paying a ransom demand. The crime works because, if you will, it is an honest one. That is, 70 per cent of the time, paying a ransom will result in a valid decryption key being provided.

This makes sense. For criminals to profit from this endeavor, they must show good faith and deliver on their promise.

Criminals also know this. Targeted campaigns see attackers spending on average nearly six months inside a company’s network before enacting ransom malware. They do so to ensure that their malware has infected as many systems as possible, including backups; to identify and extract the items of greatest value; to ensure they do not leave traces; and to garner any business intelligence (such as incident response plans or insurance policies). This allows them to determine the maximum amount of ransom to demand.

This is the essence of the business case decision. Suppose, for example, that the cost of a ransom event is estimated to be $500,000 (based on the size of the database, time to recover, data validation upon recovery and other expenses). A ransom demand of $250,000 is clearly a better alternative because it is not only cheaper, but faster than the alternative.

Organizations can calculate the cost of various incidents and determine, in principle, their willingness to pay for each possible ransom scenario. This leads to the development of what is referred to as a ransomware payment matrix for the organization.

Moral dimensions

However, there is also a moral, or ethical dimension to this decision. Payments to criminals might not be consistent with the organization’s core values, culture or code of ethics. Even if they are, this might not sit well with the company’s employees, clients and other stakeholders.

There are many frameworks and theories dealing with ethics in the workplace, and leaders need to avail themselves of one or more. This will help them make a decision regarding paying a ransom because, while it may make great business sense to pay a ransom, it may not be the right thing to do for the organization.

Instead, the organization may choose to invest funds that would otherwise go to ransom payments into training, cyber-protection and upgrading and patching systems.

Whatever the decision, it is critical to explore all options well before any cyberattacks occur. This includes holding discussions with employees, customers and other stakeholders. It also includes insurers (who are increasingly loath to insure against ransomware events) and law enforcement authorities.

Accepting the inevitability of a cyberattack and thoroughly exploring different scenarios will have the dual effect of not only preparing for the attack, but allowing for a more effective response when it occurs.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Today again we are writing about nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 the two most prevalent nylons procured. In my plastic early days, I almost lost my finger to nylon 6,6.  I was a “Production Engineer”. I was called to a molding machine. The Technician was no where to be found. The sprue was stuck in the mold. I pulled the sprue on a mold to get the mold/machine running. There was very hot material waiting for the next shot and it blew through the nozzle through the sprue and coated my hand after I unplugged the orifice. It was steam that pushed out the molten nylon.

I was rewarded with a 3^rd degree burn.  It was predominantly on my index finger on my right hand. Molten nylon sticks very well to skin. Just call me Lefty.  As I reflect on this incident, it was caused by lack of knowledge. In hindsight I should have backed off the nozzle from the mold. I was in too much of a hurry.

The reason the sprue stuck was because the nylon was not dry, and the nozzle became too cold. The water in the nylon was not a liquid any longer but a pressurized gas. My theory on why poorly dried nylon exhibits “freeze off” and spue “stick” has to do with the “refrigeration effect”.  When gas goes from a pressurized to unpressured it expands rapidly and thus cools. This is how a refrigerator works, expansion of a gas. The water was at greater than 509^o F so obviously it was a gas called steam. Water boils at 100^o C or 212^o F.  Above this temperature under atmospheric pressure the water is a gas. The pressurized gas pushed the nylon against the wall of the sprue with excessive pressure. The force was too large to overcome when the mold opened. The sprue stuck. Nylon 6,6 is a solid at 509^o F and below. The nozzle was pushed up against a relative cold mold. Nozzles are cooled being pushed against molds that are relatively cool.

Nylon has played significantly in the world of thermoplastics. Many items are manufactured from nylon. Nylon was invented during the time frame 1928-1935 by a gentlemen named Wallace Carothers who worked for E.I. du Pont de Nemours. Nylon 6,6 was commercialized in 1935. I presume there were others on his team that contributed greatly to bring this synthetic fiber to market. Was nylon the first commercialized thermoplastic? There were products such as nitrocellulose and cellulose acetate that were conceived and marketed prior to nylon. Bakelite (Phenol formaldehyde) was also being sold. Bakelite is a thermoset. World War Two initiated shortages of goods.  As a result, products such as nylon in cord or rope became very useful and popular. Think of parachutes. World War two also brought on mind set related to costs.  Attitudes like “cost is no object”. This was a way to save lives. Once a product is used and has a successful track record it continues to be used. We use the term “Grandfathered”

If one could procure a thermoplastic that had most of the characteristics/physical properties of nylon and maybe physical properties that were even better than that of nylon, you (rhetorical) as a Designer would likely be interested in procuring this material into thermoplastic applications.

What is the easiest material to process? What is the easiest material to design parts from? The answer is “the one you know the most about.” 

The negatives of nylon.  Nylon is hygroscopic.  This means that it absorbs moisture.  I am not sure if this term (word) was developed along with nylon.  Since nylon parts expand when they absorb moisture, “hygroscopic”. Nylon’s commercialization proceeded polycarbonate and other water absorbing polymers. Nylon therefore requires drying prior to processing it, as does polycarbonate and polyesters. We use the term hygroscopic to describe materials that absorb moisture. Polycarbonate molded parts do not expand post molding after absorption of moisture.

My largest “pet peeve” regarding nylon is this fact that it, Nylon changes as it absorbs and loses moisture. It is not that nylon absorbs moisture but the issues that come with that absorption. I dislike how moisture absorption impacts the processing of the nylon and the physical properties of the finished parts. This phenomena must be paid very much attention to when designing and processing nylon.

Processing data says to dry unreinforced nylon to yield between 0.08 to 0.20 percent water by weight for the nylon portion of the compound. Impact modified nylon can have as much as 20% other polymer that doesn’t absorb moisture, hence the nylon portion of the compound.

Other thermoplastics such as polyesters like polycarbonate and PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) the recommended moisture content is zero prior to the material entering the throat of the molding machine. Old literature recommends 0.03% by weight for polycarbonate and polyesters. This is due to the drying technology from decades past. Drying technology has improved. It is highly recommended that polyesters be “bone” dry prior to processing.

Polycarbonate is reported to have been invented by Dr. Dan Fox of General Electric in 1953. However, Bayer’s Herman Schnell was quicker in patenting polycarbonate. There is a bit of humor in the previous sentence. GE paid Bayer royalties for many years, the life of the patent. It is reported that Wallace Carothers invented polycarbonate in the 1930s, the same time frame as his nylon invention. More than twenty years prior to the Bayer patent. He was also working on polyesters such as PET (polyethylene terephthalate) at the time.

Why does the literature say that it is ok to have moisture present in the nylon entering the throat of the molding machine? Why have any moisture present? Was this literature written prior to reciprocating screw injection molding machines? Having moisture present in a plunger machine may have been beneficial to filling the part?

I was told that the purpose for the moisture in the nylon is that it acts like a plasticizer. During injection, the moisture enhances flow of the nylon into the mold. It is therefore my belief that nylon does not suffer hydrolytic attack by moisture at process temperature other wise the literature would say to dry to as close to zero percent moisture as possible. Too much moisture in nylon 6,6 can cause in the case of injection molding for the nozzle to freeze off and spit. (See the above reference to burnt finger). In the case on nylon 6 we don’t experience the freeze off or spitting that we do with nylon 6,6.

Unreacted monomer or dimers and oligomers (these are short nylon molecules also known as volatiles) in nylon 6 will come to the molded part surface as the steam in the molten nylon expresses force and pushes these relatively low length molecules to the surface. Caprolactam and volatiles will be blown to the surface of the parts. We call this phenomena “caprolactam bloom”. White streaks will be present on the surface of the molded part. Since the Manufactures recommend some moisture, we can deduce that nylon doesn’t suffer hydrolytic attack.

Caprolactam is a crystalline cyclic amide with a melting point of 70 °C. It is soluble in water and most oxygenated and chlorinated solvents, and some hydrocarbons. Caprolactam; Melting point, 69.2 °C (156.6 °F); Boiling point, 270.8 °C (519.4 °F; Solubility in water. 866.89 g/L (22 °C).

Note that Molecular weight (length of molecules) has a relationship to flow.  The shorter the molecules the easier the nylon flows. This can be demonstrated in a “Melt Index” machine with polyethylene. It is very difficult to create consistent flow data on nylon in a Melt Index machine. Melt Index machines are generally not used for nylon.  I believe it is due to the moisture absorption of the nylon and the moisture affect on flow at process temperature. This moisture absorption inconsistency makes for flow changes that reflect on the accuracy of the grams per 10 minutes test in a melt Index machine.

The next question relates to drying temperature.  Both nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 the recommended drying temperature is 85^o C or 185^o F. This means the dry air entering the hopper of the dryer is at 185^o F (85^oC). It is reported that nylon 6 has a melting temperature of 420^o F or 228^o C. Nylon 6,6 it is reported melts at 509^o F or 268.8^o C.  Both are semi crystalline thermoplastics, and both melt over a temperature range. The crystallinity holds the molecules together and this “bonding” requires a certain amount of energy to allow the molecules to move. Think it like the molecules are tiny magnets. Neither nylon 6 nor nylon 6,6 have a definitive melting point. Both are dissimilar to water in this respect. Water freezes and melts @ 32^o F or 0^o Celsius. This is a melting point and the freezing point of water. Nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 have melting ranges, not melting points.

Nylon should be dried in a desiccant bed dyer. The moisture content of the dried unreinforced nylon needs to be at 0.08 to 0.2 % by weight entering the throat of the molding machine. I reiterate that the literature suggests a wee bit of moisture present in the nylon assists filling the part. Processors of nylon need a moisture analyzer. Processors need to use them. The addition of glass or mineral or impact modifier to a nylon compound will change the allowable moisture content.

Note that it is my opinion, Molders cannot control the moisture content of nylon in drying process.  The moisture content of the nylon going down the throat of the machine. Most Processors dry the nylon to 0.03% or lower, AKA bone dry.

* If nylon 6 melts at 420^o F and nylon 6,6 @ 509^o F, why is the recommended drying temperature for both nylons 185^o F (85^o C)? Nylon will certainly dry more readily at a higher dryer temperature than 185^o F. Nylon is solid at 185^o F (85^o C).

The drying process of nylon can be confusing. At above 185^o F (85^o C) nylon in the presents of oxygen will oxidize. Another term for oxidization is “burning”: Both materials nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 will turn yellow after exposure to temperatures above 185^o F (85^o C) in the presents of oxygen.

How does a molder mold parts when the moisture content of the material going down the throat of the machine varies? It is my belief that this is not considered when drying nylon. The drying equipment in my opinion could be improved. For example, vacuum dryers could be employed. I believe most processors go for “bone dry”. Targeting moisture content percentage of 0.08 to 0.2% of the nylon portion of the compound going down the throat of the molding machine is darn near impossible with current familiar technology. This could be accomplished with a considerable outlay of capital. Here we are speaking of moisture & temperature sensors placed strategically in the flow of the nylon pellets. Does nylon once the moisture level of zero achieved start to polymerize?  How does a molding company control this as the extending of molecule lengths will affect the flow of the molten nylon? The nylon will become more difficult to push.

Over the last several years experimenting with vacuum drying nylon, has in my opinion improve the processing issues associated with nylon when vacuum dryers are used. These experiments have concluded that a small amount of moisture present in the nylon going down the throat of the machine is not necessary.

Another issue with processing and designing with nylon is shrinkage. Nylon exhibits differential shrinkage. In the case of injection molding the nylon shrinks more in the crossflow direction than in the direction of flow. This phenomena is much more apparent with glass reinforced nylons. This type of shrinkage is named anisotropic. Amorphous thermoplastics such as ABS exhibit isotropic shrinkage.

How does one design a precision part that will undergo anisotropic shrinkage and dimensional expansion upon moisture absorption post molding. How does one mold when the material entering the throat of the machine has a moisture content that is too high, the part may over pack? Nylon material that has a moisture content that is too low, the part will underfill?

Suppose, Pounds of Plastic Inc. could offer a product with all the attributes of nylon, but the material did not have to dried. This would save grief, ambiguity (variable concern) and considerable amount of money. Would you be interested in this material? Of course, you would.

We believe we have a great alternative to nylon in a polymer called #3. #3 doesn’t require drying prior to molding. Therefore, the molded part doesn’t absorb moisture. The molded #3 part doesn’t grow post molding. #3 doesn’t absorb sufficient moisture post molding to affect dimensions.

Large cost savings and energy savings are realized when a polymer doesn’t have to be dried. The cost savings relative to drying are huge. The liability of transferring material from one place to another is large.  From Gaylord to dryer, from dryer to molding machine for example. The potential for contamination among other things.

Nylon regrind is a science in itself. Once regrind nylon absorbs moisture it is very difficult to evolve due to particle size relative to surface area.  # 3 regrind is not dissimilar to handling polyethylene regrind

#3 doesn’t exhibit an isotropic shrink.  #3 shrinks like amorphous polymers isotropically.

#3 has wear resistance that exceeds acetal.

#3 has a coefficient of friction that is less than acetal and nylon 6,6.

Wear and lubricity are different although often lumped together. Wear and coefficient of friction are different.

#3 has fantastic chemical resistance. Nylon has very poor chemical resistance against acids and bases.

#3 with glass reinforcement doesn’t undergo a reduction in physical properties with moisture absorption. A designer doesn’t have to worry about a drop in tensile strength, flexural modulus, flexural strength nor an impact property change with the absorption of moisture using #3. A Designer could use a 18-23% glass reinforced #3 in current application where 33% glass reinforced nylon is used and obtain the same or better part. Radiator end caps comes to mind to as a potential to use Number Three with glass reinforcement. Nylon seat belt components could be replaced by #3. This would result in large cost savings. Cost in electricity (drying) as well as processing costs (inconsistencies in the melt causing poor parts).

An Isotropic shrinkage is the type of shrinkage that amorphous polymers such as ABS exhibit.

Currently nylon 6,6 is very expensive and there are several factors that have contributed to this high price. It is time to change to #3.

The caveat to using #3 versus nylon is the difference in specific gravity. #3 has a higher specific gravity than does nylon: 1.24 versus 1.13.  Part wall thickness reduction may be an option to compensate for the higher specific gravity.

If you require addition information pertaining to #3 and nylon, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

905-286-9894   

Have you ever wondered why our garbage bins (3) supplied by our town are made of virgin material?

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Worximity’s TileConnect device automatically starts collecting production data from the equipment on a manufacturing line. Photo Credit: Worximity Technolgies Inc.

It’s no secret that plastics manufacturers face major challenges these days, including labour shortages, rapid inflation, and rising raw material prices. And since none of them are going away anytime soon, they can’t be relegated to the back burner – so, you’re going to have to deal with them if you plan on remaining profitable in business. One way is to digitalize your shop floor, with benefits that include better operational efficiencies, increased throughput, and decreased downtime. These digital systems do something that more traditional annual reviews – which tend to be too focused on the past and not on forward-looking needs – can’t do: provide actionable real-time information.

But knowing what digital factory software solution to choose can be a challenge when there are so many and it seems like they all do the same thing, which they don’t. For Canadian processors looking for a digital factory software solution that gives them all the data they need – and more importantly, tells them what to do with it – one provider is closer, geographically, than you probably think. Worximity Technologies Inc. is a Montreal-based technology company that has developed continuous improvement (CI) algorithm and digital technologies that measure performance based on automatic data collection, real-time operations monitoring, automated analytical reports, and preventive and predictive advice using machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify, quantify, and prioritize opportunities, providing accurate metrics that take the guesswork out of decision-making.

The firm has a proven track record of success – clients include major players in the manufacturing industry across North America and Europe – and has recently closed a new $14 million financing round from Investissement Québec, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, and its strategic investor Marel.

EYE OPENER

Worximity was founded ten years ago by manufacturing engineer Yannick Desmarais, who cut his teeth in process improvement by developing a CI program for a Montreal-area meat processing plant where he worked as operations manager. He wanted to enhance the firm’s productivity and profitability, but prioritizing CI projects required validation drawn from hard and reliable numbers, which was sorely lacking. “I talked with everyone, from shop floor workers to supervisors and maintenance, but no one could provide adequate information,” Desmarais said. “Everyone had a different opinion about what our goals were, why production had slipped, and why objectives weren’t being met.” So, he developed and launched his own data-gathering system that allowed workers to see, in real time, where they stood in relation to production goals – and in less than a month, yield and productivity had increased dramatically. And when expanded and implemented across multiple lines in the company’s two factories, the system quickly boosted the firm’s profitability from break-even to a six per cent growth. That experience opened Desmarais’ eyes to the possibilities beyond meat processing, so he created Worximity in 2012 to deliver similar results to manufacturers of all types and sizes. “The key to process improvement is gathering actionable information,” Desmarais said. “I knew that to be successful we had to put real-time data into the hands of the workers on the floor, allowing them to respond quickly to changing conditions. Without that hard data, progress is often incremental at best.”

Yannick Desmarais. Photo Credit: Worximity Technolgies Inc.

In its early days, Worximity was actually a bit ahead of the curve for North America. “Industry 4.0 was taking effect in Europe but hadn’t really arrived here yet,” Desmarais said. “This was the age of the tablet, and potential customers weren’t comfortable bringing them onto their shop floors.” But the company hung in there, continuing to assemble its team and develop its technology, and by about 2015 the manufacturing sector was ready. “Industry 4.0 was catching on and we ran some successful pilot projects with early adopters in the food and beverage and plastics sectors,” Desmarais said. “Having evolved from a shop floor software provider, we now offer a total CI performance management software solution that lets the customer gather, quantify, and prioritize data. We’re very focused on improving profitability and gaining capacity for our customers, which are their two main concerns.”

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT IS KEY

As the name suggests, continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve products, processes, or services by reducing waste and increasing quality. “CI efforts drive a competitive advantage for manufacturers that get it right, but consistency isn’t easy to achieve – many factories have had some negative experience with CI, especially by ineffective CI programs that only really result in surface fixes such as cleaning up work areas or taping up whiteboards,” Desmarais said. “What’s important to realize, however, is that CI isn’t just a ‘program,’ it should be a part of factory culture. Introducing CI as a program can immediately set the expectation that it has a start and end date, when what everyone needs to do is to constantly improve the way they do business going forward.”

To that end, Worximity has to get to know a business before it can design a solution. “Our best installment practice process for a new customer is to connect one or two pieces of their equipment with our smart sensor for one or two weeks to gather data, and we also walk the plant with the customer so we can map their entire process,” Desmarais said. “At the end of two weeks, we can recommend the best solution for their needs based on their own data, not ours; after that, we discuss budget and timeline of deployment.” And for potential customers that already have a CI team in place or are already using a consultant, so much the better. “We can send them our smart sensor and they deploy it by themselves – it’s very simple,” Desmarais said. “A typical process takes six weeks from the first call to a full deployment, and we remain involved after installation. We have a team of operational excellence specialists with manufacturing shop floor experience who are dedicated to working with the customer after installation to keep improving profitability; they’re basically the customer’s in-house advocate.” Customers’ productivity gains increase by an average of between 20 to 30 per cent in just a few months, Desmarais continued, allowing the manufacturer to do more with the same number of employees, without using additional energy and equipment.

Worximity currently offers three main Industry 4.0 technologies under its performance management software. “The process starts with our TileConnect smart sensors, which are connected to a manufacturing line and automatically start collecting production data in real time,” Desmarais said. “Our Tile+ solution, which is connected to TileConnect, makes this data available, also in real time, via custom dashboards, allowing the customer’s team to respond to operational issues and increase production efficiency – data is securely stored on the cloud and can be accessed from any location and across devices, so you can respond to issues remotely. And Tiletyics analyzes production patterns to assist with prioritizing tasks that drive performance, cut costs, and improve efficiencies.”

TARGETING PLASTICS 

Worximity has helped improve the performance of more than 2,500 projects in North America, Desmarais said, and between five and 10 per cent of its customers are in plastics, from packaging to tubing, in both Canada and the U.S. “The plastics industry was in our sights from the beginning, and we can reduce downtime caused by either human factors or processing equipment by gathering information from the machine and the operators, reduce rejects, and track raw material yield in instances when you’re using more material to produce an order than is specified,” Desmarais said. “We’ve worked with many larger companies, but our real sweet spot is with the mid-size manufacturers; their cycle times are shorter and they have a smaller number of decision makers that have to sign off on the project. We bring profit to these companies very quickly. And if they already have an ERP management software system in place, we can build on that – we never need to scrap the system entirely.”

The recent $14-million investment will support Worximity’s growth, Desmarais said, as well as fund research and development to keep improving its technology. “We’ve worked with a number of universities in Montreal over the years on product development, as well as with the National Research Council of Canada, and we plan to continue doing so,” he said. “We have a total of 43 workers, and we’re also looking to add a few more.”

In the end, Desmarais believes Worximity’s solutions are an antidote for what ails many plastics processors nowadays. “Manufacturers are currently caught between unprecedented cost increases, staff shortage headaches to support orders, and retailers who refuse to accept any price increase,” he said. “With our technologies, they can produce more with the same equipment and the same staff.”

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