Plasticstoday Digital Magazine 2013 Global Edition

WWW.PLASTICSTODAY.COM

SEPTEMBER 2013 | SPECIAL PRINT EDITION

Global plastics tour Inside insights into plastics top markets

IM machine reportThe global IM market now, and in the future 56

Outlooks/K 2013Key end markets and their presence at K 22-55

Shale gas reportCan shale gas re-energize NA’s plastics market 10

Are packaging’s mostinnovative days behind it? 60

What is packaging’s future in key emerging markets? 66

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4 Global Plastics RePoRt 2013 Plasticstoday.com

editoRs’s letteR

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editorial ContaCts

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senior editor/u.s.Heather Caliendo

senior editor/u.s.Clare Goldsberry

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senior editor/asiaStephen Moore

senior editor/europeKaren Laird

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europe, Middle east, south americaHermann PlankPhone: +1 [email protected]

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Spelling BRIC with a “K”

The K Show has many traditions, but one of my favorites is

the global culinary smorgasbord served up on Saturday night at

the exhibitors’ party. Messe Düsseldorf’s CCD Center is trans-

formed into a global buffet, where ravioli intermingles with

curry and pilsner is served alongside caipirinhas.

A great idea and necessary hair-letting-down after four

very busy show days, but also a nod to the global nature of

the show. Exhibitors from China can enjoy a hot dog next to

American attendees dining on egg rolls.

That cultural kaleidiscope of the evening and the show

are also a reflection of what is a truly global industry. OEMs

expect their suppliers to set up shop with them all over the

world. Subsequently, those suppliers need to know the resin

they buy in Southfield has the same properties as the material

procured in Shanghai.

The PlasticsToday team has created our innaugural Global

Plastics Report in response to the passport-at-the-ready plastics

industry of today. Our editors, who like our readers are based

all around the world, have broken down key end markets

through a global prism.

The so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China)

are focused on. Consumption of plastics in the developed

world is still growing, albeit at more measured rates, but in

emerging countries, the potential has only been scratched.

Our editorial team has also previewed some of the technolo-

gy headed to global industry’s global show, thereby putting the

“K” in “BRIC”. Beyond that, we have a full report on shale gas

and the potential it holds for the plastics industry; an in-depth

look into two key areas for plastics largest segment, packaging,

with innovation and emerging market demand examined; and

finally a report on the industry’s most dynamic process market,

injection molding.

The PlasticsToday team will be at the K, and if we happen

to run into you at the exhibitor’s party, here’s a preemptive

cheers/prost/salud/gan bei!

Tony Deligio,

Content Director, Plasticstoday.com

[email protected]


At this global summit, IHS and SPI will collaborate to present a distinguished

multi-national group of speakers who will discuss key opportunities and issues

affecting the plastics market worldwide.

Keynote speakers include:

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Plastics (US)

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Contents

XX

6 Global PlastiCs RePoRt 2013 PlastiCstoday.Com

10

22

56

60

sePtembeR 2013 | sPeCial PRint edition

4 editoR’s letteR

10 shale Gas RePoRtThe explosion of shale gas development in North America has been

hailed as a game changer for a number of industries, including plas-

tics, but is there hope behind the hype? PlasticsToday goes from the

well head to the petrochemical plant to find out.

Market outlooks &

k 2013 technology Previews

22 Automotive

Stephen Moore breaks down the global automotive market,

including the outsized future influence of Asia.

30 Sustainability

Karen Laird examines the blooming bioplastics sector, where

biobased replacements of existing resins are taking hold.

38 Molds, moldmaking

Clare Goldsberry offers an outlook on the moldmaking industry

once battered but unbowed and now on a rebound.

44 Packaging

Heather Caliendo inspects the packaging market, projected to

grow despite myriad bans on mainstays like bags and bottles.

50 Medical

Doug Smock provides medical market insights, including

how a universal healthcare push in China could spur growth.

56 injeCtion moldinG maChine outlookChina has been the dominant storyline in molding machine sector for

its consumption of presses; could its rise as a producer of machines

be the next chapter? Where is the North American market headed?

60 PaCkaGinG innovationHas plastics packaging reached the pinnacle of innovation? Indus-

try leaders in materials and processing weigh in with a resounding

no. See where packaging’s future lies.


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66 PaCkaGinG in emeRGinG maRkets

The prospect of highly populous but underdeveloped nations upping

their consumption of plastics packaging has opened up a new and

potentially prosperous markets.

70 bRazil maRket outlook

Brazil’s plastics market will get a short-term boost from hosting the

World Cup and Summer Olympics, but the country’s developing

economy looks to have staying power beyond the big games.

72 Russia maRket outlook

Over two decades removed from the fall of the Soviet state, the Rus-

sian plastics market is poised for growth but will need foreign assis-

tance to achieve its full plastic potential.

74 india maRket outlook

Long in China’s shadow, India’s plastics market is on the move as the

country tracks the same upwardly mobile economic path ascended by

its Asian neighbor 30 years ago.

76 China maRket outlook

China has found a new market to tap: its 1.3 billion residents. The

country’s shift from exporter of plastic containing goods to consumer

of those items continues to shape the global plastics market.

81 k 2013 diReCtoRy

82 adveRtiseR index

Cover: Photo-illustration—Ram Manohar; Globe: funnybank/iStockphoto.com

66

72

70

74

Contents


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Plastics producers talk shale gas developments A revolution; a game changer; two of the many names given to the North American shale gas boom.

HeatHer Caliendo

Horizontal drilling and fractionation of shale gas basins are having quite an impact. One indicator: you’ll

be hard-pressed to attend a chemical or plastics conference where North Ameri-can shale gas isn’t mentioned.

At the K 2013 preview, Josef Ertl, chairman of the German Plastics Indus-try Federation (WVK), said the U.S. has emerged as a very serious competitor lately, as its manufacturing operations can now use “exceptionally” cheap shale gas as an energy source.

“The United States of America is thus developing into a new global hub for petrochemicals,” he said. “Many people are talking of the reindustrialization of the U.S. This could also have a lasting effect on the plastics landscape.”

At the IHS World Petrochemical Conference (Houston, TX), Stephen Pryor, president of ExxonMobil Chemi-cal, said that in every country he visits, the conversation quickly turns to one topic: shale gas and its impact on the chemical business.

“Without question, the reversal of fortunes of the American chemical indus-try is one of the most remarkable stories flowing from the growth in unconven-tional oil and gas,” Pryor said.

At ANTEC, Dwight Tozer, VP of ExxonMobil’s adhesion business, said that abundant U.S. shale gas supplies are revitalizing the plastics industry. Exx-onMobil’s outlook for energy indicates that the chemicals subsector of industrial energy consumption will be the fastest-growing area over the next 25 years, with demand expanding more than 50%, largely due to increased demand for plas-tics and other advanced products.

A study by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) says that plentiful and affordable natural gas supplies have

transformed America’s chemical industry from the world’s high-cost producer 5 years ago to among the lowest today.

The ACC believes that new supplies of natural gas from previously untapped shale gas deposits are one of the most “exciting domestic energy developments of the past 50 years.”

Through the end of March 2013, nearly 100 chemical industry invest-ments valued at $71.7 billion had been announced. The majority involve expanding production capacity for eth-ylene, ethylene derivatives (polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, etc.), ammonia, methanol, propylene, and chlorine among a host of other products.

“The U.S. is poised to capture market share from the rest of the world, and no other country or continent has as bright an outlook when it comes to natural gas,” the ACC stated.

If all the production investments goes as planned, there could be some very interesting times ahead for North Ameri-can chemical production.

Major impact in 2017

Robert Bauman, Polymer Consulting International, told PlasticsToday that shale gas is particularly abundant in the U.S. and because of this, North America is poised to become the second lowest cost ethylene producer in the world, prompting major expansion activity.

There have been plenty of announce-ments made regarding North American ethylene investments. As of now, there are seven new cracker projects planned for the U.S., including plans by Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil Chemical, Chev-ron Phillips Chemical, Shell, Formosa Plastics, Sasol and Occidental Chemical and MexiChem. Most of these are slated for completion by 2017.

“What I’ve found is that when you have a low-cost feedstock, a lot of com-panies want to go in and capitalize; either do it now or be forced to wait eight years,” Bauman said.

If the expected projects proceed, the total new ethylene capacity will reach about 17.7 million tons per year, a 40%

In addition to gas, shale formations also hold vast amounts of previously untapped oil reserves.


Shale GaS RepoRt

plaSticStoday.com Global plaSticS RepoRt 2013 11

increase from current ethylene capacity, according to research by Polymer Con-sulting. PE will account for about 80% of new ethylene capacity.

With the large amount of new PE capacity being built, Bauman said that producers will target domestic customers before exporting. At this point, Bauman believes that most of the projects will go forward. But he said that PE oversup-ply could be substantial if all expected projects do proceed. Prices could drop dramatically in the worst-case scenario where everyone builds out, pushing some of the production into exports.

Impact on PP

As far as propylene, Bauman predicts supply will remain tight through 2015 with growth impeded by supply and price. Most of the new propylene will be for the merchant market and for PP.

As there will be under-utilized PP capacity, he said there could be an immediate surge in PP production, with some additional new capacity likely com-ing online to meet available supply.

“The surge in supply will result in lower prices and could result in polypro-pylene re-capturing demand lost to other polymers,” Bauman said.

He said that until the new capacity starts up, PE and PP will be tight and faced with increasing prices.

“There is shale gas around the world, the only difference is globally very few countries are as advanced as the U.S,” Bauman said. “It’s really a structural change in the industry, something that will not go away. People calling it a game changer, a new frontier—there is a change going on.”

Chevron Phillips’ focus on jobs

David Morgan, VP of PE, olefins and polyolefins for Chevron Phillips Chemi-cal, said that Chevron was the first chemical company to announce plans to build an ethane cracker and derivatives facilities on the Texas Gulf Coast when they announced a feasibility study back in March 2011.

The company is on track to build a 1.5 million tons/yr ethane cracker and two PE units along the Gulf Coast as part of its USGC petrochemicals proj-ect. If approved later this year, expected

startup is 2017.This project will create 10,000 con-

struction and engineering jobs and 400 long-term positions.

Secondly, Chevron Phillips is also building a 1-hexene plant capable of producing up to 250,000 tons/yr at its Cedar Bayou Chemical Complex in Baytown, TX. The company is in the midst of construction and completion is expected in 2014. 1-hexene is a key com-ponent to making PE.

Companywide, Chevron anticipates hiring more than 2500 people in the next 5 years or so to support growth and replace retiring employees.

“There is no question that this is a significant time for the petrochemi-cal industry in the U.S.,” Morgan said. “Just look at the recently announced investments here driven by shale gas and liquids production. Chevron Phillips Chemical’s announced investments may be just the beginning. Our owners sup-port an aggressive growth strategy, and we plan to deliver.”

If this new investment exceeds the demand growth in the U.S., Morgan believes the U.S. will expand its position as a net exporter of olefin derivatives. Chevron estimates that global demand growth for ethylene over the next 10 years could support the equivalent of four to five new crackers per year.

In addition, new resin technologies will continue to provide new opportuni-ties for products and packaging, creating new markets and accelerating growth.

Shale gas resources have certainly contributed to the industry’s growth and have created great challenges and oppor-

tunities for Chevron Phillips Chemical, especially in the workforce area, he said.

“Right now, we are opportunity long and aggressively pursuing new team members to be part of an exciting time for the plastics industry,” he said. “I’ve been in the industry for 34 years, and this is the most exciting time of my career, as we build new facilities, imple-ment new technologies and people build careers in this sector of the economy.”

Is Canada beating the U.S. to the

shale gas punch?

Also in 2011, Calgary, Alberta-based NOVA Chemicals announced its NOVA 2020 plan for growth of its ethylene and PE assets to serve North America. “We have a goal to evolve our asset base to support our PE market leadership strat-egy,” a spokesperson said. “That goal has challenged us to discover possibilities that not only help deliver more capacity to our customers, but also maximize the value generated by the business.”

Some of the projects include Gas Phase LLDPE expansion in Alberta, Canada. Construction is currently underway and the spokesperson said the company is moving forward quickly to commission this facility by the end of 2015. NOVA is spending $900-million in capital costs for this project. Includ-ing operating and start-up spending, the total amount will be close to $1 billion.

“With construction already underway, we expect our facility in Alberta to begin operations in late 2015—well ahead of most other North American PE projects that are being considered,” the spokes-person said.

Three completed wellheads, Christmas Trees in industry jargon, blend into a Colorado corn field.


Shale GaS RepoRt


The company expects to have the first new linear-low density PE line to come on-stream in the U.S. and Canada since NOVA Chemicals’ Advanced SCLAIRTECH unit over 10 years ago.

“NOVA Chemicals is investing to add value to ethane, which will benefit plastics converters and consumers in the United States, as well as support the E&P investment/gas development today,” the spokesperson said. “As we continue to take advantage of new feed-stock sources, we believe our portfolio of new feedstock projects will dramati-cally improve our supply position and the cost-competitiveness of our Ontario facility. We like the position NOVA is in today and are excited for the future.”

Development in Mexico

Founded in 2010, Braskem Idesa SAPI is a JV between Brazil’s Braskem S.A., the largest producer of thermoplastics in the Americas, and Grupo Idesa, a Mexican petrochemical company.

Braskem Idesa is developing the Ethylene XXI project, a petrochemical complex for the production of ethylene and PE in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. This project is expected to require a fixed investment of $3.2 billion and a total investment of roughly $4.5 billion.

“For Braskem, the whole shale gas revolution is quite positive,” said Braskem Idesa’s Cleantho Paiva Leite. “Whatever is going to be good for pro-ducers in the U.S. gulf coast, will also be good for producers of Mexico.”

When fully operationally by 2015, Braskem Idesa will have annual installed capacity of 1 million tons of PE.

Mexico fills domestic gap

Paiva Leite said that Mexico has a very large deficit of plastics so when the plant is up and running, the company is look-ing forward to supplying the Mexican market to help with that deficit. Some of the production may be exported to South America, and if necessary, they could supply to the U.S. as well. But he said the main objective of this project is the Mexican market.

“It will have an important impact on the Mexican economy and on the Mexican plastics market,” he said. “We will serve the customers with a very short

supply time with a constant flow of volume and also provide technical assis-tance. Mexico needs a large PE plant; there is a major deficit and both the gov-ernment and plastic converters are very happy to see this project come through.”

Generally speaking, Paiva Leite said that converters should be pleased with all the new development taking place in North America.

“There will be plenty of supply from various sources, and that will substitute some of the imports of finished plastic goods that are coming from places like Asia,” he said. “It will have a positive impact on the whole value chain, not only on petrochemical companies mak-ing the investments in additional capac-ity, but we also feel a good part of con-verters will look forward to investing in their own product lines. Markets will be well served locally by plastic converters and that is all very good.”

If U.S. is the bright spot; what

about the rest of the world?

For Bill Sanderson, VP of downstream research and energy insight at IHS, the U.S. is a “bright spot” when it comes to the global energy outlook.

“For the first time in the U.S. in three decades, production is being brought back here rather than the Middle East,” he said at this year’s World Petrochemi-cal Conference in Houston. “Similarly, the Middle East and Asia will now have to invest in the U.S.”

The Middle East does appear to be at a crossroads. ExxonMobil will work with

Qatar Petroleum International on a $10 billion natural gas liquefaction facility in the Gulf Coast port of Sabine Pass. In addition, QPI has invested in North American oil and natural gas assets with the $1 billion acquisition of Cana-dian assets from Suncor Energy, which includes some shale gas potential.

In an open letter published on May 13, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal warned that U.S. shale gas development could hurt the Saudi economy.

The letter, which was addressed to Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and other minis-ters, stated, “demand for oil from OPEC member states was in continuous decline.”

He said Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil was “a truth that has really become a source of worry for many,” and that the world’s biggest crude oil exporter should implement “swift measures” to diversify its economy, according to Reuters.

Moayyed Al-Qurtas, vice chairman of petrochemical giant Tasnee, which is also one of the largest industrial companies in Saudi Arabia, said that the country needs to diversify its revenue through the use of heavier feedstocks and the production of more “sophisticated” products.

Specifically, he said the area must diversify beyond ethylene and propylene derivatives and various initiatives are in place to promote more downstream.

Al-Qurtas believes the region could be a good base for selected intermediate, specialties chemicals and export-oriented downstream plastics.

Tasnee, for one, is now producing PP, LDPE, HDPE, acrylic acid, butyl

Much of Colorado’s oil and gas development is happening alongside and within existing farm land.


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acrylates, super absorbent polymer, butyl acetates, in addition to compounding. Sadara, which is a Dow Chemical and Aramco project that is slated to start in 2014, will produce TDI, MDI, polyols, LDPE, LLDPE, PG, PO, DNT, glycol esters, amines, elastomers, and more.

Still, the GCC petrochemicals indus-try is projected to continue a growth pattern over the next five years, but at a lower rate compared with the past five due to constraint in gas supplies, he said.

“We must keep looking into new projects and technologies,” Al-Qurtas said. “Some view us as ‘fly over land’ and don’t pay attention to the potential.”

At the same time, not everyone believes North America shale gas devel-opment is a concern for the Middle East. In June, a forum at the London Business School in the Dubai International Finan-cial Center, agreed that the impact of America’s shale gas “revolution” is good news for the Middle East.

“While the American abundance of natural gas may be seen by some as a threat, it also presents opportunities for Middle East talent in the energy sector,” according to Arab News.

Recruitment experts now predict a talent exchange between the Middle East and the U.S.

“The region will become an exporter of talent,” said Danny Leinders, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. “We will now move talent from the region into North America as the demand for energy expertise grows over there.”

As the global pattern of energy sup-ply and demand shifts due to U.S. shale gas, forum experts noted that the Middle East should reassess its energy policy.

“The Middle East should first address what is happening locally before fretting about America,” Five Quarter Energy’s Harry Bradbury said. “Middle East play-ers should consider routes they can take to guarantee gas supply. There’s a need for greater manufacturing opportunities, and technology, which is an enabler.”

Matthew Lynn, a financial journalist based in London, said in an article on Marketwatch that the Middle East will be hit “very hard.”

“Countries such as Saudi Arabia can try and diversify into new industries, but in truth, if that were easy they would

have done it by now,” he wrote. “Iran will be in a lot of trouble, and so will Libya, and Gulf states such as Qatar. You wouldn’t want to bet too much on Dubai prospering if it is not the financial hub of one of the world’s wealthiest regions any more.”

Europe, not on the same

level playing field - yet Graeme Burnett, senior VP of refining and petrochemicals in the Americas for Total, believes that European demand for most polymers has reached a mature stage. As a result of shale developments, North America will become a major exporter of ethylene derivatives, first targeting South America and then Asian and European markets.

“The bottom line is that today, Europe is not able to play on the same level play-ing field with others,” he said. “We have to adopt and differentiate through process and product innovation.”

For instance, he recommends a refin-ing and chemical strategy of expanding in Asia and the Middle East to leverage growth in emerging markets and access large dedicated oil and gas feedstocks.

When it comes to the European cus-tomer, he said the company is focused on developing value-added markets, with a particular focus on “sustainable packag-ing, downgauging and end-of-life.”

In a recent report, the Institute of Directors (IoD), a non-party political organization in the UK, stated its belief that shale gas development should hap-pen in Europe. The report said that shale gas could create tens of thousands of jobs, reduce imports, generate significant tax rev-enue and support British manufacturing.

“If we don’t go and proceed, U.S. shale gas could be quite damaging,” Corin Taylor, senior economic adviser at the IoD, told PlasticsToday. “Damaging as in more risk for price violation and a less secured supply. I think if we don’t do it, Europe will get squeezed by com-petitive America.”

The IoD report states that of a poten-tial production phase, investment could peak at $4.9 billion a year, supporting 74,000 jobs—not just for geologists and drilling specialists, but for construction

workers, truck drivers, cement manu-facturers, water treatment experts, and people working in local retail and service industries. Shale gas production, with tax rates of up to 62%, could generate significant tax revenue, helping to offset a predicted future tax gap of 1.25% of GDP from lower Fuel Duty and North Sea receipts, IoD stated.

Despite the potential, there are plenty of barriers. The planning and permitting regime involves four agencies, and two public consultations are needed to drill and fracture one exploration well.

Taylor said that the national agen-cies—DECC, the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Execu-tive—should sign off on the sub-surface drilling and fracturing processes, and the local Minerals Planning Author-ity should concentrate on the surface impacts, including truck movements.

For a production phase, planning per-mission should be given for all potential activities on a site, rather than covering each well. Otherwise it would be like needing a separate planning application for each turbine in a wind farm, he said. A National Policy Statement should be drawn up, making clear that shale gas is part of the UK’s national energy infra-structure.

In addition, local authorities should receive a share of the gains from shale gas development in their area. Allow-ing them to keep 100% of the business rates for shale gas sites is a good option, Taylor said. Community benefit schemes must be flexible and spent on locally determined priorities.

While Taylor doesn’t believe the UK will experience the same kind of “revolu-tion” as U.S.’s shale gas development, he said a good scenario is slowly develop-

A drilling rig bores a well in Weld County Colorado. To limit impact,

crews work quickly to establish new well sites.



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Shale GaS RepoRt


ing the production, which will still have quite a big impact.

“A key test will be if local communi-ties are willing to accept it in their area,” he said. “We still have quite a long way to go, but are moving along. While it will help manufacturing in the UK, the bigger unknown is whether it will lower prices like it has in the U.S. Even if it doesn’t, there are major manufacturers in chemicals who want to see shale gas in the UK. We might not see a big manu-facturing boost that is happening in states, but there will be some benefit.”

GAs price outlook

tom langan

Persistently high shale gas production means persistently low gas prices, for now.

The combination of hydraulic frac-turing and horizontal drilling has made the U.S. the world’s largest natural-gas producer at 28 BCF/day from only 5 BCF/day in 2008. “Fracking” has also increased U.S. crude oil production to 10 million barrels/day, the highest level since 1992. The supply boom in both commodities is expected to last through 2040, declining only slowly after that. What does that mean for prices?

Despite the increase in production, the U.S. remains a net oil importer and, at $100 per barrel, the price is plenty high enough to make shale oil production profitable (breakeven is roughly $70 per barrel). On the other hand, natural gas prices below $3.50 per MCF make shale gas production barely profitable, if at all. Energy producers like ExxonMobil and Shell with massive investments in U.S. shale resources are struggling with persis-tently low natural gas prices. One solution to low gas prices is to shift shale produc-tion away from gas to oil—easier said than done, since finding shale oil is much more difficult than finding gas—but what else can Exxon, Shell, and other producers do to make their gas production profit-able? Tough it out and pray for higher prices? Futures prices dash those hopes.

Futures are the best indicator of where any commodity price is headed, and they appear to be going nowhere for natural gas, averaging below $4 per MCF until 2016 and risking sub-$3 per MCF in the shoul-der months (April-June, Sept-Nov) during

that time. (1 MCF = 1.02 MMBtu).

The reason natural gas prices are persis-tently low—not break-ing above $5 per MCF until January 2019—is the supply boom and lagging demand.

Natural gas demand is lagging sup-ply, but it will catch up, significantly, in the next few years through: electric-ity generation (more utilities switching from coal to natural gas-fired power); industrial use (the construction of massive natural gas pro-cessing plants to produce feed stocks like ethane and propane for new petrochemi-cals plants); and transportation (natural gas fueled vehicles).

According to the Energy Information Administration, U.S. natural gas con-sumption grows to 29.5 TCF in 2040 from 24.4 TCF in 2011. Most of the increase comes from electricity genera-tion—with cleaner-burning, less expen-sive natural gas replacing coal—and industrial uses as chemical companies switch from oil-based to natural gas-based feed stocks.

Additional gas demand will come through using natural gas as a transporta-tion fuel. With tax incentives and a low price relative to gasoline ($2 less for the energy equivalent of a gallon of gaso-line) and diesel fuel, demand by natural gas-fueled vehicles increases from just 40 BCF in 2011 to over 1 TCF (1000 BCF) in 2040.

Last but not least is the small but growing demand for natural gas for export as liquefied natural gas (LNG). This is a contentious issue, pitting energy producers against industrial consumers.

LNG exports

To date, three of 20 U.S. LNG export applications have been approved by the Department of Energy (DOE). The U.S. approval process is difficult and uncertain. Not so in Canada, where several LNG export projects are under-way. DOE approval is required for LNG exports to countries without U.S. free

trade agreements (e.g. Japan). The first LNG exports from North America are expected to occur in 2015.

To ship natural gas efficiently, it must be cooled to -260°F near an export terminal at a deep-water port and trans-formed into LNG, reducing the volume by more than 600 times. An LNG tanker then transports the product to its designated foreign market. When the LNG reaches its destination, it is re-gas-ified and shipped to its final destination by pipeline. Each step in this process has significant costs. Nevertheless, with price disparities and gas as high as $16-$17 in Japan, it is profitable to ship LNG to the Far East and Europe from the U.S. After all costs, producers could realize a profit of over $6 per MCF.

Once LNG exports begin from North America, potentially followed by LNG exports from East Africa and Australia—and the technology of shale gas extrac-tion reaches places like China—natural gas will become a global commodity like oil. This may occur as early as 2020, at which time global natural gas prices are predicted to normalize to $5-6 per MCF.

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Firestone, Colorado once again finds itself at the forefront of a fossil fuel revolution. The town of 11,000, which sits 30 miles north of Denver, grew out of a coal mine started there in 1872. Called the McKissick after the broth-ers who opened it, the site was the first coal-production mine in the state.

Firestone, CO began life as a coal town; now it’s booming along with shale

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Shale GaS RepoRt


Eventually it was sold to a group led by Jacob Firestone, for whom the town of Firestone, incorporated in 1908, was named.

Fast forward 140 years to April 2012. The coal mine is now a golf course, and that’s where Firestone’s mayor is hosting a delegation of Chinese government and energy industry representatives. They’re not talking coal, or golf for that matter. They’re talking shale, or more accurately, shale oil and shale gas.

From Denver suburb to oil-and-

gas hub

Up until 1947, five coal mines operated in Firestone, with Colorado a top-10 coal-producing state. The town would shed those industrial roots, however, as it emerged as one of the fastest growing communities in the U.S., rising from a population of 1100 in 2000 to 11,000 just a decade later as it became a com-muter suburb of metro Denver.

As the population rose, however, Fire-stone reverted to its resource extraction roots. Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling allowed compa-nies like Anadarko, which has 61 active directionally drilled wells in Firestone and 5000 active wells in Weld Country where Firestone resides, to pull fossil fuels from the state in a way they hadn’t in decades, according to spokesperson Robin Olsen.

It’s a new gold rush in Colorado, a state whose original capitol, Golden,

takes its name from the state’s resource rich mountains that drew miners in the mid-to-late 19th century. It was in Golden, where the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) was founded in 1873, just one year after the McKissicks began their coal operation in Weld County.

Today the School of Mines is a research leader in the field of shale oil and gas, and like Firestone, it is getting visitors from all around the world. They are government and industry officials who want to make their city the next Firestone or province the next Colorado.

Jeremy Boak is an associate research professor at CSM’s Department of Geol-ogy and Geological Engineering and is the director of the Center for Oil Shale Tech-nology and Research (COSTAR). What is happening in Colorado, and elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada, where horizontal drilling and fracking are releasing oil, gas, and natural gas liquids from previously untappable rock formations, has captured the attention of the world.

Eager to learn

Delegations from Bulgaria, Ukraine, China and more have made treks to Golden to meet with Boak and other COSTAR representatives. Visitors from these countries have a keen interest in exploiting their own shale resources and are actively reaching out to communi-ties that already have so they can better understand the technological require-ments as well as environmental and eco-nomic impacts.

“Judging by the extent foreign com-panies are buying into North American plays, they’re looking to learn,” Boak said, “the Chinese particularly.”

Thinking globally

In April 2012 at the McKissick-mine-cum-Saddleback-Golf-Course, it was Chauto Chan, president of Huaxin Ener-gy and the China Energy Fund Commit-tee (CEFC), along with five other CEFC delegates who were hosted by Mayor Chad Auer. Auer told PlasticsToday that although the visit drew some criticism in a community with at times insular rural roots, he felt outreach is a necessity.

“There’s just no other way to put it,” Auer said, “we have to reach out global-ly. We can’t just think about our region,

or our state, or our nation. Somebody might say, ‘Oh, it’s just this little town in Colorado.’ That’s true, but we’re not going to survive, certainly not going to thrive, if we’re not thinking globally.”

Firestone sits atop the Niobrara Shale. That formation and the Codell Shale are part of the Wattenberg basin in north-eastern Colorado—a “play” that could achieve production of 400,000 barrels/day by 2020 by some estimates.

“Firestone sits on top of some of the biggest oil and gas reserves in the world,” Auer said, “and therefore, we have to reach out to folks the CEFC, Canada, and others, and be a part of that conver-sation on what’s next.”

According to a release issued by the town, Huaxin and the CEFC were inter-ested in meeting with U.S. technology partners to help them extract Chinese shale gas, which is estimated to measure more than 885 trillion cubic feet, back home in addition to a desire to purchase gas from the U.S. for Chinese consumption.

Who’s next?

Market watchers believe China could be the next country to try to exploit shale resources on a commercial scale. For some time, however, it looked like the U.S. would be succeeded by Europe.

In that region, it has been countries in the east that have expressed the most interest, particularly Poland, which had leased prospective shale plays and drilled 43 test wells as of April 2013. Boak sits on the board of a small company that had acquired land in Poland, with the intent to drill, but activity has since slowed. If a shale play is made, he thinks it will still happen in Eastern Europe.

“It seems to me the Western Euro-pean countries want [drilling] to hap-pen first in Eastern Europe to be sure it won’t cause a problem,” Boak said. “It’s like that’s their laboratory and they’re just going to hold off until the more des-perate Eastern Europeans do something.”

That reluctance comes despite the fact that many Western European countries have potentially substantial shale gas plays of their own. France, Boak noted, has an “extremely good target” for a shale gas play that’s actually produced in the past, but its government recently put a fracking ban in place.

Denver’s Natural History Museum has an oil shale

display, reflecting the rock’s long history in CO.


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Shale GaS RepoRt


Safety concerns

The shale boom has not been without controversy, especially as wells encroach on communities, leading governments of all sizes to ban or restrict the prac-tice. Two cities that neighbor Firestone, Longmont and Fort Collins, have imposed moratoriums on drilling, with others considering such a move. Industry watchers like Boak readily acknowledge the public’s anxiety and its potential to snuff out a nascent energy renaissance.

“I think a lot of people are a bit worried about [fracking],” Boak said. “It would be a real shame if [bans] hap-pened, because I just don’t think the problems are there. I think it would be far better to look again at regulations, figure out where the real problems are and go after those.”

For Boak, those real problems come down to poorly completed wells where developers rush to encase the drilling they’ve already done, versus the drilling and hydraulic fracturing itself.

The documentary Gasland and its sequel have generated a lot of negative attention for the industry, but for Boak those films’ most dramatic scenes, where homeowners set their tap water on fire, can be deceiving. In those instances, a myriad number of factors could be at play, including shallow coal beds near aquifers or unconstrained landfills seep-ing methane into the water table.

“When they show people lighting up the faucets,” Boak said, “that has nothing to do with any fracking chemical. That’s natural gas and there are a multitude of places it can come from.”

Firestone’s Auer said in his com-munity, which has more than 250 indi-vidual gas wells in operation in an area of a little over 5 square miles, the key to limiting public interaction with drilling has been for economic development to get out ahead of resource extraction.

“To be proactive, we wanted to be sure that oil and gas developers under-stood that there’s a lot of growth going on and will continue to happen in Fire-stone. Therefore it’s important for them to get in, establish, drill their wells, get the pad sites set up first, and then neigh-borhoods and commercial development can be built around them.” Auer says there are still occasions of drilling cross-

ing paths with community, but they’re limited. “When you do it that way,” Auer said, “oil and gas development isn’t backing into residential surface use.”

Anadarko, which has had operations in Firestone since 1971, has taken steps to bury oil and water infrastructure to lessen surface impact, including truck traffic, according to Olsen.

Olsen said that 98% of the water used for hydraulic fracturing at its Wat-tenberg horizontal wells is supplied by water pipelines installed, operated, and maintained by Anadarko. “Anadarko is committed to safely producing energy in a way that protects public health, land, air, and water,” Olsen said. Over his six years in office, when 150 new wells have been drilled, Auer said companies like Anadarko have not given him reason for concern, although he can empathize.

“Of course everybody wants safe development,” Auer said, noting anxiety over everything from contaminated water to toxic fumes. “We have those same concerns. I do; I’m the mayor, and as I’ve worked with the energy industry, I’ve learned the safety steps we have to take, all the monitoring. I feel really good about where Firestone is.”

Old technologies, new fears

Neither hydraulic fracturing or hori-zontal drilling is actually new. The first horizontal well was completed in Texon, TX in 1929 but was not economically

viable in a market with falling oil pries, according to a study by Harvard Belfer Center researcher Leonardo Maugeri. Magueri said the technology wasn’t accepted as commercially viable until the early 1980s, when the oil embargo and improved technology made it more fea-sible. Hydraulic fracturing was first used in 1947 in Grant Country Kansas. By 2002, according to the National Petro-leum Council, fracking had already been used 1 million times in the U.S., with up to 95% of wells applying the technology.

So why is so much more oil and gas being extracted now via fracking and horizontal drilling?

“It’s the combination of horizontal drilling and the complex tailoring of the frack fluid,” Boak said. Initially a combi-nation of oil and sand were all that were used, but now gels and other elements have been added to prop open the frac-tures created by the sand. “Frac fluid” contains 90.6% water, 8.96% proppant, and .44% of a mixture of 12 chemicals, including acids and surfactants.

“You get down to a relatively small amount of legitimately hazardous chemi-cals that are often relatively small pro-portions of what they’re putting down the hole,” Boak said, “and you’re putting them into a hole 8000 ft deep, when all of the aquifers are less than 1000 feet. There’s not a reasonable way to get much of that up there, except through a failed bore hole.”

Water usage is one of many concerns with fracking, but its consumption for that use is relatively small.


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technology Preview:

automotive

Developing Asia the hub of global automobile production The developing Asia-Pacific region will account for 62% of overall growth in global automobile pro-duction between 2012 and 2017 according to the latest data from PwC Autofacts (New York, NY). The region, including the key markets of China and India, will contribute 62% of gains in vehicle assem-bly over that period whereas developed Asia, which includes major auto producers Japan and South Korea, will see its output decline by 3.5%.Next-best performing region according to Autofacts will be North America, forecast to contribute 13.4% of global growth in production, with the European Union accounting for 11.7%, South America 6.7% and Eastern Europe 6.3%.

For 2013, Autofacts expects global vehicle pro-duction to grow 2.3% year-on-year to reach around 81 million units. However the outlook varies consid-erably by region. The developing Asia-Pacific region will see production grow by an estimated 2.4 million vehicles, for example, while developed Asia-Pacific will likely see production down by 850,000 vehicles as assembly is localized abroad. Even though the Japanese Yen has weakened considerably in recent times, Japanese automakers are still finding it tough to manufacture cars competitively at home. For its

part, North America is set to see a gain of 770,000 vehicles assembled this year while the lackluster European Union market is likely to see a 500,000-unit decline in production.

Autofacts expects global automobile produc-tion to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 5.02% through to 2017, reaching 101 million units. At this time, hybrid, electric and fuel cell vehicle production is pegged at around 5% of overall pro-duction (ca. 5 million vehicles) versus 2.8% of total assembly in 2012. PwC Autofacts attributes these gains to industry collaboration driving down costs and performance metrics simultaneously improving. Furthermore, other technologies such as clean diesel, compressed natural gas (CNG) and, even further down the road, driverless vehicles, are also set to gain traction as the industry approaches a new era of innovation according to PwC Autofacts. “While some technologies are still a number of years away from being brought to market, the investments in them have already begun,” says the consultant.

China continues on growth pathTraffic congestion in major Chinese cities such as Beijing has prompted government authorities to

introduce measures to limit the number of cars on the road. This appears to be no major concern to automakers, however, especially given the number of Chinese cities with populations exceeding one million where the private car ownership revolution has yet to make major inroads.

One needs to look no further than the example set by Volkswagen, which was the first global automaker to enter the Chinese market, 30 years ago. Having firmly established itself in the Shanghai area and in Changchun, Jilin Province, VW moved west in 2011 when it set up shop in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Currently with five Chinese plants, the German automaker announced plans in April to start production at a further five plants by the end of 2013: the Urumqi, Foshan and Ningbo vehicle assembly

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technology Preview: automotive

plants, as well as component facilities at Changchun and Foshan; with another two plants to follow.

By 2018, the VW workforce in China will increase from 75,000 to 100,000, while annual production capacity is set to grow from the current 2.6 million to more than 4 million units per year in 2018, with a view to relieving the burden on existing plants in a growing market.

VW also plans to start supplying vehicles with “electric powertrains” to the Chinese market from 2014 or 2015. Some of these vehicles will be manu-factured locally by the joint ventures like Shanghai-Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen.

Not to be outdone is GM. The OEM’s manufac-turing facilities in China are running at near maxi-mum capacity. In 2012, GM’s joint ventures opened two new manufacturing plants. They will open four additional plants in China through 2015. This will enable GM to increase its domestic manufacturing capacity by 30% to about 5 million units annually. “We are at an important point in our history and the industry’s history in China,” said Bob Socia, presi-dent, GM China, and Chief Country Operations Officer, China, India and ASEAN, in a statement ear-lier this year. “Last year, the [Chinese] vehicle market reached a record 19.4 million units. We expect indus-try sales to grow another 7-8% in 2013.”

“Our focus is on luxury vehicles and SUVs going forward,” Socia said. “Not long ago, both were con-sidered niche segments. Both are now mainstream and growing rapidly.” GM is in the process of bring-ing Cadillac’s entire global portfolio to China, adding one locally produced model per year through 2016. Earlier this year, it introduced the locally produced XTS luxury sedan as well as the refreshed SRX luxury

SUV, which is Cadillac’s best-selling model in China. To date, the luxury segment has been dominated by European OEMs.

K 2013: Automotive preview

Coating specialist Leonhard Kurz Stiftung & Co. KG (Stand 5/A19) is presenting a process it has developed for decorating 3D geometries under technically demanding conditions at this year’s K. Hailed as a “new dimension in plastics decoration,” live demonstrations at the booth will showcase the possibilities offered by the process, including the combined application of Inmold Decoration (IMD) and Inmold Labeling (IML) on the same injection molding machine. On the machine, a curved automotive center console panel will

be produced. Incorporating decoration and function-ality at the same time into a single injection molding operation serves both to save costs and increase pro-duction efficiency, while allowing the functionality to be directly integrated into the part.

Kurz is also demonstrating its patented 3DHS finishing process, which, in contrast to conventional hot stamping, is capable of decorating three-dimen-sional components. The 3DHS process offers a cost-effective decoration option for slight-to-moderate 3D geometries. A vertical stamping machine developed by the Kurz subsidiary Baier GmbH & Co. KG will be on display demonstrating the application of a true chrome finish to an automotive air-vent cover.

Further exhibits will include a host of new foil design ranges and trends for a variety of industries, such as consumer electronics, home appliances, auto-motive and cosmetics, including metallic and wood designs with tactile structures for automotive inte-riors, brushed designs with novel patterns for home appliance products, and trendy colors with shimmer-ing effects for mobile devices.

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Materials such as polyaryletherketone (PAEK) resin offer the aerospace industry solutions for reduc-ing weight, energy consumption and costs in very demanding applications according to supplier Victrex Polymer Solutions (Lancashire, UK). At the upcom-ing K Show, the company will showcase new applica-tions and products based on its high-performance polymers at Stand 5/A23 in Düsseldorf.

“Each new product and application development is all about identifying market trends early and taking them into account while facing new challenges at the

same time,” explains Rainer Müller, commercial man-ager Europe. Although that result might sound simple enough, it takes plenty of expertise, commitment, and market knowledge to achieve.

Take the aerospace industry as an example: it can take months before the most suitable material with regards to cost-benefit aspects is found, approved, and implemented as an application. Along with their unique combination of properties, polyetheretherk-etone (PEEK) polymers (part of the PAEK group) score points with their established qualifications and approvals by manufacturers such as Airbus and Boe-ing. Metals cannot be replaced in this way until such qualifications and approvals are completed.

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The performance of the PAEK product portfolio reportedly extends across a broad temperature range - and also under extreme operating conditions, such as damp, chemically aggressive environments or cyclical stresses. “In that way, decisive opportunities can be developed and often make it possible to replace metals which are much heavier or to replace other polymers which are unable to stand up over the long term under the specified conditions,” Müller says.

Three concrete examples bear this out: Victrex PEEK 90HMF40, which was recently qualified by Airbus, permits weight savings of up to 40% versus aluminum. The high-strength polymer is character-ized by up to 100 times longer fatigue strength and up to 20% higher specific strength and stiffness as compared with aluminum 7075-T6 used in the aero-space industry under the same conditions. Broad use of the high-performance polymer is bound to reduce weight, fuel consumption and emissions.

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plastics, the coefficient of friction exhibited by Victrex polymers is even lower, depending on the require-ment profile, and remains stable over the life of the product. This is said to be positive news for motor vehicle manufacturers in light of extended warranty periods or the new targets for reduced CO2 emissions recently established by the EU.

In the oil and gas market, production failures can be catastrophic and expensive. Compared with other high-performance polymers, Victrex PEEK reportedly provides 100% greater pressure handling capability, three times more creep resistance, and 12 times the compressive strength at elevated pressures and tem-peratures. It meets the escalating high-pressure, high-temperature demands with innovative materials that withstand pressures up to 30,000 psi (approximately 2000 bar), temperatures of -60 to 260°C (-76° to 500°F) and exposure to harsh chemicals.

In view of the increasing demand, Victrex is investing to expand its production capacity and to

implement continuous process optimizations in order to ensure reliable supply of the high-performance plastic over the long term.

Kiefel (Stand 3/C92) forming and laminating units are used to create the complete door-interior trim of both the new BMW 3 series and Mercedes C-Class. Since the vehicles are produced in various parts of the world, the machines must be adaptable to the different requirements of the local production, Kiefel noted.

Kiefel has built seven laminating machines for BMW, which are used to make the door interior trim of the new 3 Series produced in Germany, South Africa, and China. Each of these machines takes just 80 seconds to produce a complete set of door interior trim components. BMW’s worldwide operation man-ufactures approximately 2500 3 Series cars every day.

Mercedes, in cooperation with its Tier 1 supplier JCI, ordered six laminating units, which it uses to produce the door interior trims of the new C-Class. All of these machines have been equipped with an in-mold-graining tool developed by Kiefel. Mercedes will soon be producing 2200 of the new Mercedes-Benz C-Class cars every day in its factories in Germany, South Africa, China and the U.S. The new C-Class will be available from 2014.

Engel will have several automotive-related displays at K (Stand 15/B42, C58). The company partnered with ZF-Friedrichshafen to create a plastic brake pedal. Engel will offer visitors a first glimpse into the manufacturing process for the award-winning part. The cell includes a vertical Engel insert 1050H/200 injection molding machine with easix multi-axis industrial robot and an infrared oven, where con-tinuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic semi-finished products will be heated, preformed in a mold and immediately overmolded with polyamide. The system produces ready-to-fit components, eliminating trim work. The composite pedal weighs 30% less than

conventional steel brake pedals without impairing load-bearing capacity. The control unit of the Engel easix multi-axis robot is fully incorporated into the control unit of the injection molding machine, so that machine and robot movements are precisely coordi-nated for optimized production.

Engel will use the largest vertical press it has ever brought to a show to produce latch

covers for the KTM X-Bow sports car using resin transfer molding.

The cell creating parts for the X-Bow features a number of partners and technologies,

including a PUR-RTM system from Hennecke.

north America will contribute

13.4% to global auto growth with

the european Union accounting for

11.7%, and South America 6.7%



Also on Engel’s stand will be a v-duo 700, which was unveiled last year, becoming the largest vertical machine ever presented by Engel at a show. The v-duo will produce latch covers for the KTM X-Bow sports car using resin transfer molding. An Engel viper 20 linear robot will handle parts.

The company partnered with Wethje, which supplied the components and preforms; Langer, which built the tool; Hennecke, which provided the HP-RTM system; and BASF, which brought the PUR-RTM system. KTM

provided component design and the composite-specific construction, including the simulation of the manu-facturing process.

The third automotive exhibit com-bines three production processes in an Engel duo 3550/650 pico combi M injection molding machine. In a single

process step, the Varysoft process devised by Georg Kaufmann Formenbau will make dashboards for the Hyundai Kia Automotive Group from a thermoplas-tic substrate, a decorative overlay and a layer of polyurethane foam. In this

process, TPE-foils are preheated in an integrated infrared oven. Once again, the PUR system will be provided by BASF, with polyurethane processing equipment supplied by Hennecke. Varysoft report-edly provides even greater softness while allowing undercuts in the mold design. The integrated production process fea-tures an Engel viper 40 double robot and an Engel easix multi-axis robot, for trimming the overlapping foil with an ultrasonic cutting head. To reduce com-ponent weight, Trexel’s MuCell technol-ogy is used in the injection molding of the thermoplastic substrate structure.

There is lots more K 2013 info online.

Go to:

www.plasticstoday.com

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technology Preview:

Sustainability

Bioplastics Outlook: Green grows the plastics industry Bioplastics, for many years an area that has been very long on potential and disap-pointingly short on results, is finally start-ing to deliver on its promise.

Driven by a combination of consumer demand, oil prices, brand owner com-mitment to sustainability, government regulation and legislation, the past few years have seen the successful development and commercialization of various different types of bio-based plastics, from new poly-mers—think PLA, PHA, PEF—to drop-in replacements of old favorites. Hence, while petrochemical-based materials today continue to make up the overwhelming majority of plastics produced—of the some 280 million tons of plastics pro-duced worldwide in 2012, biopolymers accounted for only a modest 1.2 million tons—and are likely to do so for some time yet, these numbers are nevertheless poised to undergo a shift within the very near future. The latest forecasts from the European association for bioplastics, European Bio-plastics, predict a five-fold increase in production volumes, to almost 6 million tons, by 2016.

drop-ins spurring growth

Drop-in bioplastics, which are chemically identical to petroleum-derived plastics, are gaining accep-tance with what can only be described as dazzling speed, compared to other bio-based plastics. This is mainly due to the overriding advantage of using a known material versus an unknown novelty. Drop-ins are compatible with existing recycling streams; also, their use involves much less risk, which is why brand owners and OEMs favor them. In fact, one of the major forces behind the anticipated jump in bioplastics consumption is the drive by major bever-age manufacturers such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi to develop plant-based, petroleum-free bottles, based, among others, on the drop-in material bio-PET. Demand pull from these companies, has already caused bio-based PET to account for some 40% of the global bioplastics production capacity, with vol-umes predicted to reach 4.6 million tonnes, or 80% of the world’s production capacity in 2016. Howev-er, bio-PET is only partially bio-based: PET is made

up of two components, i.e. MEG (mono-ethylene glycol), which makes up 30% of the PET by weight, and PTA (purified terephthalic acid), which makes up the other 70%. Although the MEG in bio-PET is produced from sugarcane, the search is still on to develop economically viable routes for the produc-tion of green PTA.

Car interiors, too, are another expanding applica-tion area for bio-PET: Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. has talked about using partially biobased PET in up to 80% of its car interiors, and Nissan used the material in the seats and interior trim surface of its 100% electric LEAF.

Bio-based polyethylene is another drop-in mate-rial that is strongly driving market growth. Braskem (Brazil) is the largest producer of bio-PE with 52% market share, followed by Dow Chemical, in coop-eration with Crystalsev, and Belgium’s Solvay. Other drop-ins are looming on the horizon: technology has been or is in the process of being commercialized for bio-based nylon, polypropylene, polystyrene, poly-carbonate, PVC and many other traditional plastics.

shale gas shakes up the picture

The shale gas boom has added a new dimension to the investment case for bioplastics.

The abundant shale gas reserves and their exploi-tation in the United States have raised concerns that bioplastics, especially PET and PE drop-ins, will

Could carbon dioxide change its status from greenhouse gas to plastics feed-

stock? Bayer thinks so, and is making the investment to prove it.



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technology Preview:

Sustainability

suffer. As shale gas offers an inexpensive and abundant ethylene feedstock source, why then invest in bio drop-ins, that typically cost more to produce and that moreover, have generated debate about using food crops for manufacturing pur-poses? To some extent, these concerns even seem justified. Dow Chemical and Mitsui & Co, for example, announced at the beginning of this year that they were postponing the second phase—building the plastics plant—of their bioethylene project. Now, Dow is building an ethyl-ene cracker unit based on shale gas feed-stock, as part of the planned expansion of its plant in Texas. And it’s not just the US. Elsewhere, in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, countries are taking a long look at the opportunities offered by shale gas extraction, despite, in some cases, deep environmental concerns.

As both PET and PE are ethylene based plastics, it is questionable whether in the long run, the premium on bio-ethylene will continue to be palatable to users in the light of the new, cost-advantaged ethylene from shale gas. In the short term, however, bio-PET will continue to benefit from Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s commitment to the development

of a 100% renewably sourced, plant-based bottle. And, as Hans-Josef Endres, head of the Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hanover, Germany, points out, more is at stake than cost alone. “One of the main driv-ers for bioplastics is that they are based on renew-able feedstocks. At the end of life, they can be disposed of by incinera-tion if need be, without adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Shale gas extraction not only produces CO2, but it is connected with a lot of unknown risks and eco-logical impacts,” he said.

Bioplastics growth fueled By shale

gas?

The shale gas revolution is apparently shaking up the picture in more ways than one, however. Using natural gas to make ethylene has meant a switch away from naphtha, from which such oil-based plastics feedstocks such as propyl-ene, butadiene or benzene are derived. In an analysis by Ludwig Berger (Reuters) in December of last year, “makers of chemicals and plastics from plant matter are emerging as unlikely beneficiaries of the abundance of U.S. shale gas, which is shaking up the global petrochemical industry.” He quoted from a report from Morgan Stanley, which stated that “a continued shift to ethane cracking will lead to an ongoing shortage of higher carbon chemicals such as propylene or butadiene. This environment is likely also to be supportive of renewable chem-istry economics.” Morgan Stanley’s researchers went even further. They noted in a report that the global bioplas-tics market could grow by as much as 40% per year on average through 2020 to become a $30 billion industry, in the “bull-case” scenario with the most opti-mistic outcomes achieved.

the outlook is green

Whether driven by sustainability consid-erations, economics or the need to find a balance between the two, the bioplastics market may be expected to continue to thrive and expand. Governments around the world are taking action in legislative areas that impact the bioplastics industry, and the demand pull from consumers and brand owners shows no signs of slackening.

While market growth today is largely thanks to biosubstitutes of petrochemi-cal commodities, the next few years will also see improvements in the position of novel bioplastic materials, such as PLA, PBS, PHA and even PEF, as ongoing efforts to improve properties and perfor-mance start to bear fruit, thus stimulat-ing market acceptance. Production costs will come down as the technologies move from pilot to commercial scale. In short, bioplastics have come a long way in the past few years, and the coming years will hopefully see them becoming a significant source of the world’s plastics.

k 2013: Bioplastics preview

It will have escaped no one’s notice that 2013 is a “K year”: the year in which the nineteenth edition of the triennial K Show spectacle takes place in Düsseldorf, Germany. As always, the show is preced-ed by a veritable tsunami of announce-ments and information from companies showcasing novel developments and innovations, with “bio” still very much featuring as the trend du jour.

Wacker (stand 6/A10) announced that it is launching an improved version of its Vinnex binder system. Vinnex is a vinyl-acetate-based polymer binder system that both acts as a compatibilizer and can be used to enhance the physi-cal properties of bioplastics. Different Vinnex grades can be combined with one or more biopolyesters and fillers in a modular system, thus allowing manu-facturers to develop high-performance bioplastic blends. These can be processed on conventional machines for standard conversion processes, with no modifica-tions required, including hot-fill thermo-forming applications. Selected grades of Vinnex are also certified for food appli-cations, opening up possibilities for items

Bioplastics production, including biodegradable and biobased resins, is

forecast to make a major leap in coming years.


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Sustainability

like coffee cups and soup containers.Lanxess (Stand 6/C76-78) empha-

sized its commitment to “Green Mobil-ity” at the pre-K event, with manage-ment board member Werner Breuers calling it “one of the megatrends on which our strategy is based.” The com-pany announced the addition of five new grades to its portfolio of “green” ethyl-ene- propylene-diene elastomers (Keltan Eco) before the end of 2013. The five new grades are “drop-in” variants of conventional EPDM rubber grades from Lanxess that are already in widespread use. If all goes according to schedule, they will be commercially available in the second half of 2013. Lanxess said it was seeing clear signs of considerable interest in greener rubber solutions, which led to the decision to significantly expand the range of biobased Keltan Eco grades.

All five new Keltan Eco grades con-tain around 50% ethylene derived from Brazilian sugar cane.

Breuers also touched on the impor-tance of R&D at Lanxess, recalling the company’s recent announcement of the successful conversion of bio-based butanediol into PBT in a commercial scale plant. “With technology from the sustainable chemicals company, Genomatica, we were able to replace petroleum-based BDO with bio-based BDO made from renewable feedstocks. This is an important step towards our

future plans to offer increasingly more of our high-tech products based on innova-tive bio-based raw materials,” he said.

Other specifically bio-related research is reportedly taking place in the Lanxess High Performance Elastomers business unit, where researchers are investigating the use of Levapren, the ethylene-vinyl acetate rubber (EVM) made by Lanxess, as an impact-resistance modifier for PLA, aiming to reduce the brittleness of PLA.

EVM grades with a vinyl acetate content of around 50% have been found to be the best modifiers. Microscopic examination has revealed that Levapren

500 is distributed very evenly in the PLA matrix, making it more resilient. What’s more, the rubber absorbs strong mechan-ical loads by forming small cavities in the Levapren domains. Jan Paul de Vries, head of the high-performance elastomers business unit noted, “Our initial findings show that EVM grades with medium vinyl acetate content, such as those contained in the Levapren portfolio, are particularly suitable for this application. In technical terms, it is very difficult for our competitors to gain access to such EVM grades.”

Celanese VP of sales - Europe, Middle East and Africa, Maria Ciliberti highlighted the materials innovations that will be on display at (Stand 6/A07). These will include novel applications for the company’s Clarifoil cast cel-lulose diacetate film, the biodegradable and compostable product, which the company has been producing since the 1940s, and which is now also available as a thermoform film for packaging.

When the rest of the industry switched to petroleum-based films in the 1970s, Celanese stuck with the original, renewably sourced (from cotton or wood pulp) material. The versatility of the film, which is manufactured in England, is still being explored, according to Cilib-erti. “Its high clarity, combined with an ability to dissipate moisture makes it ideal for packaging warm (bakery) prod-ucts such as doughnuts and muffins: the

Production at Bayer’s pilot plant was recently switched from batch to continuous mode, as the com-

pany seeks to make polyols from carbon dioxide.

The advent of biobased versions of workhorse plastics like polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyethylene

terephthalate will help global biopolymer production make a major leap in coming years.


Plasticstoday.com Global Plastics RePoRt 2013 35

technology Preview:

Sustainability

moisture simply goes right through the film, which retains its transparency. And the products don’t get soggy.” Found in applications ranging from anti-fogging laminate in ski goggles to shoe lace tag-ging, Celanese is touting the film as the environmentally friendly alternative to PVC and PET, with built-in advantages neither can provide. “Whether it’s used as the ‘window’ in the box, or as alterna-tive insulation in trains, cellulose acetate film is a natural choice with unmatched sustainability credentials,” said Ciliberti.

at k 2013, Bayer shows how (green)

dreams can come true

“What really drives humanity,?” asked Patrick Thomas, CEO Bayer Mate-rialScience at a recent conference in Leverkusen, Germany, before answering his own question: “It’s dreaming.”

At BayerMaterialScience (Stand 6/A75), they’re not not afraid to dream. “That’s what this year’s K Show is about,” said Thomas. “We want to show not only what has become of the dreams we dreamed three years ago, at K2010, and what the new dreams are today, built around the three broad themes of safety, freedom, and happiness.”

Three years ago, the idea of the Solar Impulse, the long-range solar powered aircraft project, which BayerMaterial Science is participating, flying across the United States was an inspired idea. “Today, that’s exactly what this plane is doing,” said Thomas, “and the dream is now to circumnavigate the world.” He called the Solar Impulse a ‘flying labora-tory’ to test ideas.

It is this mindset that has made 150-year-old company into the global brand it is today, but, having said that, Bayer know the path to innovation is beset with challenges. “We’re prepared for setbacks,” he said. “Without failure, there’s no gain. Failure in innovation is inevitable. But you have to keep dream-ing. Dreams are what innovations are based on.”

from dream reaction to dream

production

Three years ago, a different dream was also in the making. This was the ‘Dream Reaction’ project, in which improved

catalysts were being sought that would enable the use of CO2 as a raw material for the production of plastics. “Today, that’s exactly what we can do,” Thomas said. “A pilot plant in Leverkusen has been producing polyols (a component of flex-ible polyurethane foam) from CO2 with the help of a special catalyst since early 2011.”

The name of the follow-up project is ‘Dream Production.’ Production at the pilot plant was recently switched from batch to continuous mode. A com-mercial scale plant is scheduled to go into operation in 2015, and the polyols manufactured from CO2 are expected to hit the market that same year. They will initially be used in mattress production. They may also be used at a later stage in thermoplastic polyurethanes, coatings, and fibers.

According to Thomas, there are “a lot of sources of carbon out there, and it’s time to stop thinking about CO2 in terms of waste, but as a feedstock. Meth-ane as well.”

“Today, Bayer is using the greenhouse gas CO2 to support a safe supply of raw materials,” Thomas said. “But it’s also got to be a sustainable business model. We’ve got to deliver on results in a busi-ness sense. Of the three Ps—people, planet and profit—profit is just as important as the other two.”

Asked whether it was difficult to launch innovation in the kind of adverse economic situation the market is in today, Thomas was emphatically clear. “Customers are looking for more cost effective ways to compete and to differ-entiate themselves. One way to achieve this is by innovation. This is what they’re looking for.”

What about the risks associated with new products in a low-economic growth environment? “Well, those are not the people who come to K,” said Thomas. “K visitors are looking for inspiration, for new ideas. And at our booth, we’ve created a communication area that aims

to foster and stimulate the exchange of ideas; to invite visitors to share problems and create solutions and to encourage visitors to share our dreams with us.”

Calcium carbonate is increasingly acting as a product, process, and sustain-ability enhancer, according to Omya (Stand 6/D75). Packaging will take cen-ter stage this year at the K for the Swit-zerland-based global calcium carbonate specialist. The company is presenting its full portfolio for the polymer industry, among which are the latest additions to the calcium carbonate Omyacarb and Omyafilm ranges, which are specifically targeted at the packaging sector and will be exhibited in a variety of new applica-tions, including film extrusion, caps and closures, sheet extrusion and extrusion coating.

Calcium carbonate is used to enhance mechanical properties and improve productivity in a wide variety of applica-tions, from thin films to thicker sheets. The material can boost the output of processing lines while achieving improved impact strength and higher stiffness. The Omyafilm range, specifi-cally developed for the film industry, yields benefits for both the production process and the end product. Calcium carbonate is also used to produce micro-porous breathable film types. In this instance, the mineral serves as an active ingredient: during production, when the film is stretched, microvoids are formed between the polymer and the calcium carbonate, resulting in a network of micropores that produce breathability.

In the packaging sector, Omyacarb is used to enhance blowmolding processes.

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technology Preview:

Sustainability

Omya is touting its calcium carbonate as an environmentally friendly product that reduces the overall negative impact of plastic applications. Although the company has conducted its own Life Cycle Analysis programs since the 1980s, sustainability has become an increasingly important value for the company and its stakeholders over the past five years. Adding calcium carbonate to plastic products improves the environmental footprint, and, says Omya “has led to a strong development in environmentally friendly applications.”

The group is also showcasing its direct addition technology for PVC extrusion applications. Direct addition of calcium carbonate at the extruder feed throat results in a higher calcium carbon-ate content, higher operational flexibility and a more stable process compared to standard dry-blend mixing.

Various products in the Hydrocarb range for vinyl extrusion for the build-ing and construction industries will also

be on show. According to Omya, these products allow processors to increase cal-cium carbonate usage without compro-mising on mechanical properties or final product performance.

Geba Kunststoffe is looking to boost the sustainability of more durable goods, with the development of lighter-weight natural-fiber reinforced thermoplastic polyurethanes.

Building on its years of experience in the development and production of reinforced thermoplastic polyure-thane (TPU) compounds, the German compounder Geba Kunststoffe (Stand 5/47A) is presenting its Desmovit DP R Eco product line, a range of TPU com-pounds reinforced with natural fibers, at K 2013.

The new line was developed jointly with Geba’s long-term strategic partner, Bayer MaterialScience, and is based on TPU compounds made of Bayer’s Des-mopan thermoplastic polyurethane mate-rial. A registered trademark of the Bayer

AG, Desmovit is exclusively produced and sold by Geba. The companies aimed to expand the reinforced TPU product portfolio through the addition of a mate-rial with good mechanical properties that could offer weight advantages over cur-rent glass-fiber reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane compounds.

Geba says that the new line offers a weight optimization of 8%, and that it therefore presents a viable alternative to glass reinforced compounds in sectors where weight reduction is sought, such as the sports and automotive sector. Next to a lower density and improved mechanical properties, the material offers a further advantage with regard to its fracture behavior: on breaking, no sharp edges are formed. This attribute minimizes the risk of injury when used in applications such as, for example, sporting goods. Moreover, the partially biobased compound’s firmness makes it suitable for components and assemblies with low wall thicknesses.

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38 Global plastics RepoRt 2013 plasticstoday.com

technology Preview:

molds/moldmaking

Mold manufacturing healthy but stresses still exist The global mold manufacturing industry is generally healthy, having come back nearly to pre-recession levels in many parts of the United States and Europe. However, there are several stressors that continue to apply pressure to the industry.

The industry continues to be fragmented and consisting primarily of small, privately-owned enter-prises. The fall-out of mold shops during the 2008-2010 recession removed many of the weaker compa-nies that did not have the financial wherewithal to weather the storm. That wasn’t a bad thing however, as it reduced the pressure on the larger shops with higher levels of technical capabilities whose utiliza-tion and profitability were being threatened not only by Chinese mold companies but by the smaller, local competitors who often bid jobs at less-than-profitable prices.

With the competitive threat from Chinese com-panies lessening over the past few years as costs increased (wages, raw materials, and shipping in particular), and with the smaller competitors gone from the landscape, those mid-sized and larger com-

panies appear to be gaining ground with new busi-ness opportunities and increasing backlogs. In fact, from what we’re hearing at industry trade shows and anecdotally from various companies, OEMs are will-ing to pay more to get their molds built in a shorter amount of time. While price remains important, lead time has jumped ahead of price as a priority in some cases.

tHe sKills gaP

The lack of skilled employees—known as the ‘skills gap’—is also putting pressure on mold manufac-turers. Much of the tribal knowledge of the older employees is being lost as they retire. Younger workers do not have the advantage of working with experienced moldmakers for several years to gain that knowledge. That has led to a renewed emphasis on apprenticeship programs, and greater involvement of individual moldmaking companies with local com-munity colleges and universities, and trade schools to reestablish manufacturing skills programs for the metalworking trades.

However, with that said, moldmaking technology has evolved to a point where there is a significant reduction in the number of man-hours it takes to build a mold. High-speed machining, robotic automation and the development of multi-machine work cells run by a single machinist/operator mean that the average mold shop is able to reduce the number of employees it takes to meet mold build requirements with shorter lead times.

With the advancements in machine tool and automation technology come the need for employees that can provide automation integration, and in-house maintenance and repair of the machine tools. As mold companies become larger to handle more business and meet lead time demands, it takes more manage-ment skills as well. One job in high demand currently is program/project managers who can provide scheduling, customer communication, information

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dissemination, and ensure the timeliness of the project’s completion.

Many mold manufacturing compa-nies are providing value add services such as prototyping of the part through vari-ous 3D additive manufacturing processes or with a single-cavity “pilot” mold to provide re-design and engineering oppor-tunities prior to the multi-cavity mold build; material flow analysis as part of the mold/part design phase; mold tryouts that often include process validation and qualification in accordance with FDA requirements (for medical devices and products); and the integration of auto-mation for large molding cells.

PRESSURE FROM OEMS

There is also the pressure from OEMs that many mold suppliers face, in partic-ular from the automotive industry which is leaning on all its suppliers to increase capacity and manpower in order to reduce lead times and eliminate bottle-necks in the supply chain as the number

of vehicles produced begins to ramp up in 2013 and 2014.

Mold suppliers are feeling the pres-sure of increased responsibility from their OEM customers for the quality of the parts the molds make, not only at the molding level but throughout the life

of the product. Medical device OEMs being subject to class action lawsuits for defective products that cause physical harm to patients, might soon take a les-son from some of the automotive OEMs who are making their suppliers liable for defective parts that result in vehicle

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molds/moldmaking

recalls, even if the parts are made to OEM specifications.

This kind of cradle-to-grave responsi-bility—that used to be just the purview of the OEM—is sure to add to the cost of doing business with many of these OEMs who are becoming more depen-dent upon mold suppliers for engineer-ing expertise and design assistance. With more value-added services comes greater responsibility.

Consolidation

Consolidation has altered the land-scape somewhat over the past few years. Mergers and acquisitions among some of the larger mold companies have cre-ated a few “mega-shops” in the mold manufacturing industry. There have also been some acquisitions of mold manu-facturing companies that want expanded capabilities such as Husky Injection Molding Systems acquisition of KTW, a European mold manufacturer known for its large, multi-cavity molds for the packaging market. In a few instances, OEMs have purchased mold companies in a reversal of a trend that had them divesting of moldmaking and molding just two decades ago.

Mold manufacturing will continue to see shifts and changes, as the industry strives to keep pace with the OEMs and

molders that make up their customer base. They will continue to add value where it makes sense, and provide more services to increase business opportuni-ties. Molds are complex, costly manu-facturing machines in their own right and the industry needs the human skills, experience and expertise; the improving technology, and the increasing ability to be financially stable enough to meet demands of global customers.

K 2013 Preview: moldmaKing

Braunform MED’s K mold showcases innovative high-volume mold for phar-maceutical

When K 2013 convenes in Düs-seldorf, Braunform (Stand 1/F30) will be demonstrating a 96-cavity injection mold with a 5-second cycle time. Project partners Hekuma and Engel will also be featured.

The 96-cavity Braunform MED mold for a pen stroke (needle holder) is designed specifically for use in cleanroom operations. The high-cavitation injection mold processes the pen strokes using automated manufacturing with constant visual monitoring for quality. With core diameters of only .3 mm and 05 mm, the tool is a modular design with the modules individually centered and (de)mounted externally accessible.

The mold also features direct side gat-ing with a full hot-runner system from Heitec, and uses conformal cooling to achieve extremely short cycle times utiliz-ing vacuum brazing.

Automation specialist Hekuma devel-oped the high-speed extraction system with an acceleration of up to 17G and a camera visual inspection system ensures automatic sorting of rejects. Machine manufacturer Engel is providing an all-electric e-motion 220-ton press. The mold will be running at Engel (Stand 15/B42).

Another Braunform mold will dem-onstrated at press manufacturer Fer-romatik Milacron GmbH in Stand 15/C06. A 4-cavity injection mold for the production of a single component container, the Adapplicator with a part weight of 1.6g and a cycle time of 9 seconds

The mold’s hot half is used to pro-duce two containers: the 1-ml Adapplica-tor as well as the 2-ml Adapplicator. The modular construction means that the cavity plate nozzle side and the complete ejector side can be changed while the hot half remains in the injection mold-ing machine. It also allows for replacing the mold inserts on the nozzle side. The mold does not have to be removed from the molding machine during mainte-nance or cleaning processes.

StackTeck Ltd., (Stand 1/D09) a designer and manufacturers of high-productivity mold solutions for the injection molding industry, announced

A two-component closure for a juice box will be molded on this 12 + 12 cube mold, which aims to bring

2K molding to mass-production projects.

Hot runner supplier MHS calls this the only dedi-

cated micro injection molding machine capable of

producing runnerless parts in a 32 cavity cycle.


plasticstoday.com Global plastics RepoRt 2013 41

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molds/moldmaking

a new range of mold capabilities for In-Mold Closing (IMC) of injection molded parts. IMC has been offered for many years for flip-top closures, to fold the part over a living hinge and close the flip-top part before releasing it from the mold. The primary advantages of this approach include precision of the clos-ing motion, as well as the opportunity to fold the living hinge while the plastic is still hot, resulting in enhanced durability of the hinge.

Key developments in this technology have focused on using multiple, sepa-rate motions of the closing arms, while optimizing the control of closing force, particularly for high-cavitation molds. The compact design of the closing arms allows for maximum cavitation in any given press size, and the minimized stroke distance required for closing enables the fastest possible cycle time, explained StackTeck.

IMC makes it possible to fold these parts and lock them in the closed posi-

tion using clasp mechanisms, prior to ejection from the mold. The closing arms provide precise movement with a well controlled closing force that is con-sistent between all of the mold cavities.

“This is where our dual strengths in plastic part design and mold expertise come together to bring value to the customer,” said Randy Yakimishyn, StackTeck president. “In this case the functionality of the part has been greatly improved, at moderate cost, while main-taining a simple free-drop and bulk han-dling format at the molding stage.”

Two cube molds are better than one for FOBOHA at K 2013 in Stand 1/A24. Partnering with Ferromatik Mila-cron and Arburg, the tools will produce specialized closures. At the Ferromatik Milacron stand, a 4 x 8 + 8-fold mold will produce a two-part screw top which, when closed, can hold a UV-sensitive powder, for example. As soon as the cap is opened, the powder mixes into the liquid below.

In this setup, eight bottom and eight top parts are injected for each parting surface. In the 90° position, transverse to

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Glaroform will mold and inmold label 500-ml con-

tainers with an average wall-thickness of 0.4 mm

and a weight per unit of approximately 11g.


http://www.imscompany.com


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the longitudinal mold axis, an integrated handling system pulls the upper parts from the mold and screws them directly onto the bottom bottom half of the clo-sure, which stays in its cavity.

At Arburg’s stand a 12 + 12-fold pilot mold will run on an Allrounder 720 A with 3200 kN clamping force, molding a two-component cap for juice carton packs. A proprietary hot runner system developed specially for high-cavity molds is used, with an open hot runner system injecting the pre-moldings and a needle shut-off mechanism used for sheath-ing in the second station. Adval Tech FOBOHA will also have its own stand in Stand 01/A24.

Mold component supplier HASCO (Stand 1/A23) will feature an extended range of support pillars designed for bigger mold bases. The pillars are used to support mold plates or intermediate plates and bridge large gaps between the mold risers. With new additional sizes and lengths, one features thread and dowel holes, while the other has a clear-ance hole.

Glaroform AG (Näfels, Switzerland; Stand 10/G77), as part of the IML Competence Collaboration, will show a fast running 2-cavity injection mold for an oval inmold-labeled 500-ml food container. The company says the mold has a hot runner system with pneumati-cally operated needle valves. The molded part, which has an average wall-thickness of 0.4 mm and a weight per unit of approximately 11g, is decorated with IML on the sides. The tool utilizes what Glaroform calls “form-fitting” cooling, noting this helps guarantee fast cycle times, reproducible product quality, and reduced part warpage. The IML Com-petence Collaboration includes Beck Automation AG, Ernst H. Furrer AG, Glaroform AG, Viappiani Printing and BFA Solutions Ltd.

Calling it “the only dedicated micro injection molding machine capable of producing precision runnerless parts in a 32 cavity cycle,” Mold Hotrun-

ner Solutions (MHS; Georgetown, ON) will actually show a high-volume micromolding machine at Stand 1/A9.

The company says it can outperform the competition by a factor of 8 to 1. A spokesperson for MHS told Plastic-sToday, “There are a number of micro molding machines on the market. We looked at all of them and based our numbers on the closest competitor in terms of output. In some cases, the M3 outperforms other machines by more than a factor of 8.”

Optimized for cleanroom produc-tion, the M3 is a tiebar-less machine with 4 tons of clamp force that uses four modular inserts, each containing eight micro cavities, which the company says “completely do away with the traditional injection mold structure.” The inserts use the same parameters as the prototype molding process, accelerating the move to production parts. The insert system is also said to simplify mold design.

Up to eight different part designs can be injected in each cycle. The machine can run a cycle in five seconds with shot weights less than 10 mg. Gating to smaller sub-runners can increase each cycle yield to 128 cavities.

Glaroform, as part of the inmold labelling competence collaboration will show a fast-running 2-cavity mold for an inmold labelled 500-ml oval-shaped food con-

tainer at K 2013.



technology Preview:

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The M3 is touted as a complete molding cell equipped with onboard automation, an integrated vision inspec-tion system, mold inserts, hot runners, dual-touchscreen processing control, and touchless part handling and material loading.

France’s Plastisud, which acquired Vernon, Kentucky-based Integrity Mold & Die earlier this year, will also be at the K in Stand 1/F42. The French mold manufacturer of large-cavitation molds for the thin-wall packaging and bever-age closures said it acquired Integrity in an effort to better service its global cus-tomers in North America. Founded by molders Dwight Looney, Kyle Thomp-son and Rick McGraw in 1989, Integrity Mold & Die grew into a manufacturer of precision molds for thin-wall packag-ing. In particular, the company special-izes in high-cavitation hot runner tools and stack molds.

Looney, who serves as the company’s VP of Engineering, told PlasticsToday

that Plastisud found Integrity while it targeted firms for a North American acquisition.

“As with a lot of European com-panies, they do business in North America—about 25% of their sales are from North American customers—and they wanted to find a partner to sup-port the business they currently have in North America as well as build new business for the future,” Looney said. Plastisud has approximately 160-180 employees at its production facility covering 130,000 sq ft that includes a test lab of 17,000 sq ft equipped with 10 injection molding machines. Integ-rity currently has 25 employees at its newly-built 25,000-sq-ft facility and averages approximately $5 million/year turnover.

Engel, the Austrian injection mold-ing machine manufacturer, and Plas-tisud formed a joint venture for the production of sealing caps for water and soft drinks containers in China. The new concept, which they call Green Cap, was launched at Chinaplas 2012 in Shanghai.

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Glaroform says its “form-fitting” cooling, helps

guarantee fast cycle times, reproducible product

quality, and reduced part warpage.


http://www.adeka.co.jp/


technology Preview:

packaging

That’s a wrap: packaging materials, machinery outlookDriven by growth in emerging markets, a new report estimates that the global rigid plastic packaging market will reach a value of $161.11 billion in 2013. The report, by Visiongain, said emerging markets will be characterized by clear immatu-rity and strong economic growth, which will increase the quality and quantity of consumer purchases. In addition, low labor costs will also provide an incentive for companies to expand the scale of their operations in these markets.

While the effects of the economic crisis are still felt throughout the entire supply chain, Visiongain said that the conditions the crisis has created have actually proved favorable to the growth of rigid plastic packaging.

As a consequence of the economic crisis, there has been a change in consumer preferenc-es and this has been reflected in purchasing patterns. Consumers want convenience, and they are looking for good quality products at an affordable price, according to the report.

There are also demographic trends that have positively affected growth in the rigid plastic packag-ing market. An aging population, for example, has stimulated demand for packaging with greater visual appeal and ease of use, with rigid plastic packaging proven effective in addressing this demand.

“The economic crisis has also led to more people staying at home and increasing their consump-tion in the household,” the report stated. “This has increased the need for packaged products and has helped galvanize demand in the rigid plastic packag-ing market.”

Last year, Visiongain’s analysis indicated that the global flexible (converted) plastic packaging market would reach a value of $137 billion in 2012, as the trend of convenience and low cost drove the global flexible (converted) plastic packaging market.

The flexible plastic packaging market will record strong growth over the next decade, with a sig-nificant portion of that growth derived from the emerging markets. This will be, in part, due to ris-ing disposable incomes as a consequence of stronger economic growth. Multinationals in the developed markets are expected to shift their strategies to the high growth developing markets, and the developed

markets will be characterized by consolidation.The Visiongain author commented that, “Glob-

ally, consumers are demanding convenience when making purchasing decisions and the versatility of flexible plastic packaging has provided a way to sat-isfy this demand. On the other hand, the developed nations will be characterized by declining demand and this will be, in part, due to the devastating effects of the recession. Consumers have lower dis-posable incomes and overall packaging demand is expected to decline. With that said, the decline in packaging demand in flexible plastic packaging will not be as significant as in some of the other materi-als, such as glass, since flexible plastic packaging is perceived as being more cost effective.”U.S. OUTLOOK FOR PLASTIC FILM

U.S. demand for plastic film is expected to grow 1.9% annually to 16 billion lb in 2016, with a mar-ket value of $19 billion, according to The Freedonia Group. Expansion of the market will be fostered by an acceleration in economic growth and an increase in consumer spending, which will drive demand for film used in diverse applications such as retail sales, manufacturing, and construction.

Advances will also be helped by an increase in the use of film in packaging, where it offers advantages in cost, performance, and source reduction over other packaging materials. The versatility of plastic film increasingly allows for the downgauging of

The battenfeld-cincinnati Multi-Touch roll stack, presented for the first

time in 2012, will be featured at K 2013.



packaging, reducing the amount of mate-rial needed and lowering production and shipping costs, while maintaining desired characteristics.

Although this expands the presence of plastic film in the market, it also reduces the volume of film needed, limiting growth.

Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) will remain the most widely used film, representing almost 50% of demand in 2016. Demand for LLDPE film is forecast to register strong advanc-es through 2016. Due to its relatively low cost and versatility, LLDPE will see gains in diverse markets such as packag-ing for snack foods and produce, medi-cal and pharmaceutical products, and stretch and shrink wraps. Conventional low density polyethylene (LDPE) will grow at a slower pace as it is supplanted by better performing LLDPE in many applications.

High density polyethylene (HDPE) is expected to grow at an above aver-

age pace through 2016. Although constrained by slow growth in applica-tions such as retail bags, HDPE film will gain in packaging for snack foods, baked goods, and grain mill products.

Demand for polypro-pylene film will also be above average through the forecast period, with packaging for snack foods, baked goods, and grain mill products the leading applications. Polyethylene terephthal-ate (PET) film demand will remain essentially unchanged, with increases in packaging demand for snack foods, dairy products, and frozen food offset by the continued decline in photographic and magnetic film.

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film demand is expected to grow at a below

average rate through 2016, primarily due to packaging for medical products and shrink wrap applications. Degrad-able plastic film will experience the fast-est growth at more than 10% per year through 2016, driven by efforts to devel-op more sustainable and environmentally friendly products.

An example of a high-speed extruder from battenfeld-cincinnati that

will be showcased at K 2013.

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technology Preview:

packaging

Plastic film demand in nonfood pack-aging is forecast to grow at the fastest rate of all film markets, driven by pack-aging for medical products and phar-maceuticals needed to care for an aging population.

Solid growth is also expected for food packaging with the fastest gains in weight saving pouches for beverages, packaging for frozen foods and confec-tions, and packages designed to extend the shelf life of produce and dairy. Nonpackaging applications will expand at a slightly below average rate, limited by slow growth in trash bags and other applications such as disposable diapers. Growth in secondary packaging will also be below average, constrained by efforts to reduce or eliminate the use of plastic retail bags.

WORLD PLASTICS PROCESSING

MACHINERY OUTLOOK

As you can imagine, there are several market reports dedicated to the plastics machinery market.

A general study reviewing the entire plastics processing machinery market stated that global demand is projected to rise 6% yearly through 2015 to $28.7 billion, an improvement over market growth during the recession-impacted 2005-2010 period, according to ReportsnReports. Sales growth will be driven by an acceleration in plastic manufacturing output and by a favorable fixed investment environment world-wide. In addition, rising income levels, especially in developing nations, will spur demand for both plastic products and plastic packaging, the report stated.

Another study, this time from Vision-gain, determined that the value of the overall global packaging machinery mar-ket in 2013 will reach $152.76 billion.

K PREvIEW: PACKAGING

UK-based Atlas Converting Equipment will showcase upgraded versions of its Atlas CW Series and Titan SR9 Series slitter rewinder technology for plastic films and flexible packaging materials at K 2013 at Stand 3/B91.

The company launched its new Atlas CW3600 and CW1040 series slitting

and rewinding technology platform in 2012 and has introduced the CW5000 Series available in widths from 3600 to 5400 mm. The complete CW Series of more compact film slitting machines now covers widths from 2500 to 10,400 mm (98 – 410 inches) at speeds of up to 1500 m/min (4920 ft/min).

The company said the major benefits of the new technology include higher efficiency, increased productivity and reliability, higher quality rewind reels, reduced noise levels and more effective, operator-friendly control systems.

The new Atlas CW1040 Series has been designed to cope with the increas-ing speed of film production lines and does not just rely on an increased run-ning speed to achieve this. Atlas said that the CW Series also has faster acceleration and deceleration cycles. Compared to a conventional primary film slitter run-ning at 1500 m/min, producing rewind lengths of 8000 m, the Atlas CW Series will have a faster rewind cycle, but at only 1200 m/min.

Atlas has now sold more than 40 of the new CW Series slitter rewinders in widths from 2500 to 10,400 mm for BOPP, BOPET and CPP films. This latest Atlas technology features wireless rewind arm positioning, automatic knife positioning and direct-drive web-path rollers ensuring optimum web tension for films as thin as 6 micron and up to 125 micron. Electrical cabinets are now fully integrated into the machines to reduce the space required for installation with ‘under floor’ service trenches no longer required.

The new generation Titan SR9 Series secondary slitter rewinders will also

be presented at K 2013. New features include reduced power consumption and faster set-up time.

At K 2013, rotary bagmaking machinery manufacturer CMD will launch a new bag machine and winding system in Stand 3/G05.

The company says that the CMD 864 global bag machine and winder offers continuous-motion sealing and provides converters with technology that is simple to operate, has low maintenance require-ments and quick changeover. Visitors can inspect bags-on-a-roll samples and discuss the system with technical experts and international agents.

The system utilizes CMD continu-ous-motion technology, which the com-pany said provides a wider processing window than traditional, intermittent-motion or shuttle-style bag machines. CMD rotary sealing allows for converters to adjust the dwell, or amount of time the heated seal bar is in contact with the film. This technology takes on sealing challenges, converting at up to 450 ft/min (138 m/min) bags made from bio-resins, post-consumer recycled content, or down-gauged films.

Stork will exhibit its latest develop-ments in injection molding machines and technology at K 2013 in Stand 13/D72. New at the K-show is the intro-duction of five application specific machines in cooperation with partners.

The company said the exhibits are targeted to show optimal efficiency in production systems for fast, high-tech packaging applications.

Four of these Stork machines at the show are designed as hybrid machines with different variations of optional elec-

Atlas CW1040 Series primary slitter rewinder promises faster acceleration and deceleration cycles.



technology Preview:

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trified executions of drive systems. The fifth machine, a full-electric, is designed for optimal energy consumption at high-est possible production speeds.

These machines include the Stork Food line specifically for food applica-tions; Stork Pot line for producers of pots; Stork Pail line is the machine range for pail producers; Stork 2-fit line is especially equipped for the production of fittings; and the Stork Crate line for production of crates.

The Stork 2500-1450 hybrid machine with 2500 kN clamping force is equipped for high-speed thin-wall food packaging applications. It will produce a rectangular 150g food container with IML from a 4-cavity mold in a 2.0 sec-ond cycle. The production cell will be equipped with a Brink side entry IML system. The machine is also equipped with a roller rail system for the precise guidance of the moving platen. The maximum mold height is enlarged for optimal use of stack molds.

The Stork 5500-5650 hybrid machine has a clamping force of 5500 kN and is optimized for the production of flower pots in multi cavities. The machine is equipped with an electrical clamping unit andhas a dry cycle of less than 1.7 seconds. At speeds of more than 2.0 meters per second for the moving platen, the lowest energy consumption will be achieved when kinetic energy is transformed back to electricity by a feed back unit. Injection speeds are closed loop control up to 1000 mm/seconds.

The fully electric Stork 2000-850 machine with 2000 kN clamping force will produce a round food container. The container will have an EVOH bar-rier layer from EVAL with bonding, applied by an IRIS co-injection unit supplied by Mold-Masters. The products produced in 4-cavities will be taken out by a Brink side-entry robot and checked by an IMD VISTA camera.

The hybrid Stork 9000-8650 machine will produce a consumer crate

of 2220g in 30 seconds. The machine is equipped with a high performance injection unit with 27 L/D mixing screw featuring special geometry for optimal output and coloring.

At the Polymac Stand 13/B59, a Stork 3300-1450 will produce a 4-liter pail with IML in 7 seconds. This machine is equipped with a Polymac IML and take-out system. The shot weight will be 150g. With its new all-electric single-stage machines, Cypet Technologies said that PET processors now have the possibility to produce any size of PET bottles up to 20 liters and any size of PET jar up to 145 mm neck diameter. The company calls this a “world’s first” and says that there is no other all-electric single-state PET processing machine in the world that can produce jars with that diameter or bottles bigger than 1 liter.

Cypet recently introduced these two all-electric machine models, based on its proprietary single-stage PET processing

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www.hosokawa-alpine.com



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packaging

technology. The company will be exhib-iting at K 2013 in Stand 14/C58.

The Cypet single-stage process was originally implemented using servo-hydraulic injection technology, with three machine models covering all sizes of PET bottles and jars. Now Cypet’s new all-electric machines will comple-ment the three servo-hydraulic machine models that the company has on offer.

In addition to saving an estimated 30% of electricity usage, servo-hydraulic technology has a faster response time and therefore a higher movement repeatabil-ity and process consistency, compared with conventional hydraulics.

However, compared to servo-hydrau-lic technology, the primary advantage of all-electric PET processing is cleanliness, eliminating the risk of contamination from hydraulic oil leaks. The company said additional benefits include savings in electricity consumption, the precision and repeatability of the process, the avail-ability of parallel movements for saving cycle time and the lower maintenance requirements.

Thermoforming machinery manufac-turer Illig will present automatic roll-fed machines using its new Intelligent Con-trol (IC) technology at Stand 3/A52.

The company said that the IC con-cept optimizes the thermoforming line with servomotor drives employed in all sections of the machine, with fast and low operating effort required.

At K 2013, Illig will showcase two automatic roll-fed thermoforming lines with machines and molds of the RDKP and RDM- K series equipped with the new IC technology. RDM-K machines are specifically designed for serial pro-duction of cups of various shapes and sizes out of thermoplastic material. Roll-fed thermoformers of the RDKP series produce trays and hinged packs, used for the protection of food articles during transport and presentation on the super-market shelf.

On the stand, APET cups will be produced on an IC-RDM 54K machine, with a forming area 520 by 300 sq mm. The machine is equipped with an 18-up tool, with more than 50,000 cups produced per hour. Hinged packs are produced on an IC-RDKP 72 machine

(forming area max of 756 by 535 sq mm) out of PP on a 6-up tool.

Reifenhäuser wants the industry to forget what it currently knows about polishing stacks in Stand 17/C22. “With Mirex MT we have completely changed the current state-of-the-art technology and chosen a different approach,” said Helmut Meyer, responsible developing engineer. “Our courage paid off. In the past, it was hardly conceivable what the new polishing stacks are able to accom-plish with regard to precision, automa-tion, and reduction of production cost.”

At a K 2013 preview, Reifenhäuser Managing Director Ulrich Reifenhäuser said the firm is “rethinking” precision.

“What we did is bring in the motion control of two machines and the result is fully automated and saves raw materials. We achieve a better thickness tolerance by avoiding hydraulic. Patent pending: no one is else is doing this.”

The Mirex MT product range allows film producers to adjust the polishing nip by a factor of 10. In contrast to other polishing stacks, the nip adjustment of Mirex MT can be changed automatical-ly, even during production. In the past, the line had to be stopped for manual adjustment of the correct nip on a trial-and-error basis. Reifenhäuser said that Mirex MT works at the push of a button and the set data are 100% reproducible.

The high level of automation has a positive effect both on the film quality and production cost, according to the company. Due to the uniform thickness profile over large web widths, produc-ers are able to obtain film of consider-ably improved precision while saving raw material. Thanks to the automatic adjustment, set-up times are only a quarter of the time needed in the past. The amount of waste can be reduced by 75%, depending on the production con-ditions, the company said.

When it comes to sustainability, Reifenhäuser believes the new Mirex MT technology outperforms all other polishing stacks available in the market. Hydraulic systems are completely dis-pensed with so that the polishing stack developed by Reifenhäuser cast sheet coating is suited for clean room produc-tion. Film producers can benefit from

triple savings in energy: no need for hydraulic pumps in permanent opera-tion, improved efficiency of roll drives, and finally, no energy-intensive adjust-ment of the nip.

Reifenhäuser has created a new con-tact roll for cast film winders that is designed to save producers a complete production step. At the K 2013 preview, Reifenhäuser said the new contact roll, with special micro structure for Midex rotary arm winders, will help cut produc-tion costs, enhance the winding quality and increase production safety.

A special micro structure and soft rubber-coating improves the contact to the web and prevents undesirable film warts that can lead to the blocking of the film layers in the winding process. Reifenhäuser said that producers usu-ally counteracted this by using “expen-sive” additives. However, the company feels with its new solution this can “be reduced to a significant extent.”

The new roll also eliminates the need for electrostatic charging of the film used in the past to improve the winding qual-ity. Reifenhäuser said that that process was performed even though it was “detri-mental to the working conditions of the operating staff due to possible electro-static discharges.”

“These are not only unpleasant to people, but may become a safety risk, depending on the environment, for instance, in production halls where col-ors are worked with at the same time,” the company stated. In addition, to facilitating film conversion processes, the new roll reduces this risk to a minimum.

The roll is now available and can be retrofitted to all Midex rotary arm wind-ers, according to the company. Agr International will exhibit a wide range of products designed for the mea-surement and quality management of plastic containers and packaging in Stand 11/B40. Two of its products will include The Process Pilot automated blowmolder management system and the OptiCheck system.

David Dineff, director of marketing for Agr, told PlasticsToday that the Pro-cess Pilot has been fully commercial for about two years, but that the company added a number of new features includ-



technology Preview:

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ing integrated vision inspection and another feature that will be announced during K.

The Process Pilot is a unique product that interfaces with the blowmolder to provide precise material thickness distri-bution management and defect detection for PET bottles while offering hands-off blowmolder control. With the trend towards lighter bottles, Agr states that the Process Pilot is the “ultimate light-weighting tool.” This system offers bottle producers the ability to aggressively light-weight bottles to the absolute minimum while providing the confidence that material is distributed appropriately.

Dineff said that this system actively changes critical parameters on a continu-ous basis to manage the thickness pro-actively. It manages parameters such as the heating lamps, preform temperature, preblow pressure, timing and more.

The Process Pilot system makes it possible to produce consistent high-quality bottles on a 24/7 basis regardless

of operator skills, environmental changes and preform variations. Some of the ben-efits this product offers include: overall improved quality with reduced variation in top load and volume, production efficiencies that result from eliminating the need for section weights as well as reduced scrap and lower incidences of downtime in the blowing operation or filling line due to quality issues.

“This product is very important to the PET bottle manufacturers,” he said. “Our target audience is the bottle con-verters and the brand owners that self manufacture bottles.”

The OptiCheck system offers a comprehensive vision-based inspection solution for bottles and similar contain-ers transported on a conveyor line. This multi-camera inspection system offers versatile, comprehensive detection for the entire container including seal surface, sidewall, base and label defect detection as well as laboratory-precision finish gauging, all on the conveyor line. The

OptiCheck system is modular and can be customized to meet the specific needs of a container producer. Versions of the OptiCheck system are available for opaque as well as transparent containers.

K 2010 was a pretty significant show for battenfeld-cincinnati. Created in April 2010, a few months before the international trade fair, the formal com-bination of Battenfeld Extrusionstechnik GmbH (Bad Oeynhausen, Germany) and Cincinnati Extrusion GmbH (Vien-na, Austria), was divided into three divi-sions—construction, infrastructure, and packaging—that supply extrusion equip-ment for pipes, profiles, film, and sheet.

Now three years later, the Bad Oeyn-hausen/Vienna-based company is placing a greater emphasis on “green” technology in Stand 16/D22.

The packaging division will high-light its high-speed extruder and new “Multi-Touch” roll stack, which can be delivered as individual components or combined in a complete extrusion line.


http://www.nisseiasb.co.jp/en/


technology Preview:

medical

Medical plastics prognosis: Growth

The medical market will be the strongest segment for plastics growth over the next four years, with demand growing at rates above gross domestic product in Europe and the Americas and in the 9-16% range in Asia and other developing regions.

Major factors driving growth will be implementation of new national healthcare programs in China and the United States, aging populations in developed countries, and development of new technologies, such as bioresorbable implants. At the same time pressures to reduce costs will escalate and there will be increasing use of olefin elastomers in place of flexible PVC bags and tubing plasticized with phthalates.

Contract manufacturers will play a bigger role in both medical device manufacturing and healthcare packaging as they increase their global footprint, expand manufacturing capabilities, and add design engineering and assembly services. Matt Jennings, CEO of Phillips-Medisize, says that plastics con-tract manufacturers held 23% of the medical device business in 2010, and they held 30% this year. He expects their role to continue to expand.

One development supporting that view was the acquisition this year of Nypro by Jabil Circuit, a global electronics manufacturing services company. More consolidation is likely as scale and access to capital become key factors in plastics contract manufacturing.

Based on interviews with processors and market researchers, PlasticsToday predicts that plastics medi-cal device manufacturing in the Americas will grow 4% in 2014. Growth rates will rise to 6% by 2017 as the footprint of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) expands in the United States, making healthcare services available to more people. By 2017, the initial impact of severe cost restraints will also have less of an effect in the United States.

PlasticsToday predicts that plastics medical device manufacturing in the European Union will grow at a strong and steady 7% annual growth rate through 2017. Europe will continue to lead in implemen-

tation of new technology despite enforcement of tougher regulations that will make the Euro Zone a little more like the United States in clinical trial requirements.

The biggest action will be in China where growth rates will rise from 9% in 2014 to about 14% in 2017 as healthcare insurance and availability of sophisticated care expands. According to BCC Research (Wellesley, MA), the Chinese medical polymer market will exceed $4 billion by 2017. The Chinese pharmaceuticals market will grow at a dou-ble-digit level between 2013 and 2020, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

K 2013 PREVIEW: MEDICALPatients can administer their own medicines with high dosing accuracy via a small mechanical injection pump that fits comfortably into your breast pocket. The prototype device, which will be displayed by Bayer at K (Stand 6/A75), applies Makrolon Rx polycarbonate (PC) for all housing components. Makrolon’s transparency allows patients to immedi-ately check the filling level of the medicine.

Beyond transparency, Bayer said Makrolon allows the pump to withstand wear and tear in everyday use, due to its high impact strength and durability. The material can also be sterilized through high-energy radiation and is resistant to a broad spectrum of pharmaceuticals.

Bayer will also highlight an insulin pen made of

Davis-Standard’s dsX extrusion tech includes a medical tubing line in addition to cast film.



the Bayblend M850XF PC blend at K 2013. This small device has the size and appearance of a ball-point pen, and can administer the desired dose of the medi-cine. Bayer notes that the alloy is partic-ularly well suited for injection molding of thin-walled components.

Braunform MED mold will show-case an innovative high-volume mold for pharmaceutical at K 2013. Braunform (Stand 1/F30) will be demonstrating a 96-cavity injection mold with a 5-second cycle time. Project partners Hekuma and Engel will also be featured.

The 96-cavity Braunform MED mold for a pen stroke (needle holder) is designed specifically for use in clean-room operations. The high-cavitation injection mold processes the pen strokes using automated manufacturing with constant visual monitoring for qual-ity. With core diameters of only 0.3 mm and 0.5 mm, the tool is a modular design with the modules individually centered and (de)mounted externally for

accessibility.The mold also fea-

tures direct side gating with a full hot-runner system from Heitec, and uses conformal cooling to achieve extremely short cycle times utilizing vacuum brazing.

Automation specialist Hekuma developed the high-speed extraction system with an accelera-tion of up to 17G and a camera visual inspec-tion system ensures automatic sorting of rejects. Machine manufacturer Engel is providing an all-electric e-motion 220-ton press. The mold will be running at Engel (Stand 15/B42).

Another Braunform mold will be demonstrated at press manufacturer Fer-romatik Milacron (Stand 15/C06). A 4-cavity injection mold for the produc-

tion of a single component container, the Adapplicator, with a part weight of 1.6g and a cycle time of 9 seconds

The mold’s hot half is used to pro-duce two containers: the 1-ml Adapplica-tor as well as the 2-ml Adapplicator. The modular construction means that the cavity plate nozzle side and the complete ejector side can be changed while the hot half remains in the injection mold-

Braunform’s MED mold combines process-safe pharmaceutical technol-

ogy with a 96-cavity high-speed injection mold.


http://www.all-star-usa.com/



technology Preview:

medical

ing machine. It also allows for replacing the mold inserts on the nozzle side. The mold does not have to be removed from the molding machine during mainte-nance or cleaning processes.

A UV-curable LSR will allows new overmolding combinations at K 2013. Momentive Performance Materials (Stand 8/G45) is showcasing a totally new approach to hard-soft combinations at this year’s K international trade fair. The company is presenting its newly developed UV-curing LSR, producing an injection-molded multi-component design object in a fully automated pro-cess in cooperation with Engel (Stand 15.B42, C58) injection molding machines, using a mold supplied by the Austrian liquid injection molding spe-cialist Elmet (Stand 12/E49-7).

Traditionally, multi-component designs utilizing silicone rubbers were limited to the combination of heat stable resins such as PA or PBT due to the molding temperatures that were required to vulcanize the silicone. Now, as the company is demonstrating at its stand, UV LSR can be combined with more affordable, lower melting point resins, such as PP or PMMA, to produce multi-material molded products with hard-soft characteristics. Engel and Elmet pre-viewed the technology at Plastec West 2013, which is produced by PlasticsTo-day’s parent company, UBM Canon.

The system’s pumping and feeding equipment are specialized to run LSR.

Mounted on a standard Engel e-mac 170/50 equipped with a viper 6 robot, the Elmet mold is designed to cure the

LSR by UV light transmission through the pre-molded PP part, enabling the cold curing process in short cycle time. Another innovation is Elmet’s newly developed, dedicated pumping and feeding equipment optimized for UV-curing LSR.

MPM’s UV-curing LSR offers ‘sig-nificant potential processing and manu-facturing benefits’ says the company, including reduced cycle times, especially for articles with high wall thickness like cable accessories or high voltage insula-tors and improved sustainability, as the process requires lower temperatures and hence less energy than traditional silicone processing. Moreover, MPM points out that, significant cost savings are achiev-able, not only because more affordable resins can be opted for, but also because less floor space is utilized for equipment, and operation costs can be reduced

Until MPM introduced UV-curing silicone rubbers, heat had always been a limiting factor for designers and manu-facturers when selecting material for substrates and inserts to combine with silicone.

This new technology will allow designers to combine silicones with tem-perature-sensitive electronics or incor-porate temperature-sensitive ingredients into the silicone that normally would not withstand conventional molding tem-peratures.2-platen mold for syringes

TIM’s little brother will be in Düs-seldorf, as a two-platen mold replaces a cube for disposable syringe production

Total Integrated Manufacturing,

TIM for short, now has a “little brother” featuring a modular two-platen mold in place of a cube mold. At K 2013, TIM innovator Zahoransky (Stand 2/A02) will showcase a new, patented system featuring two mold halves with a central rotary cube, allowing two different parts to be made on a single mold. Zahoransky will use the technology to manufacture disposable syringes, featuring isolation and the non-gluing injection molding of partially ground syringes with a luer application. Both the NFS (needle feed-ing system) and the injection molding unit are integrated within an vertical Arburg Allrounder 275 V injection mold-ing machine utilizing a rotary table.

The 8-cavity mold utilizes hot run-ners for melt delivery. Output of one system is projected at 55 million dispos-able syringes per year, and several sys-tems can be interconnected to scale up even greater production.

Zahoransky said the TIM mold’s “little brother” has no tie-bar extension, a must in cube molds, since it uses a modular two-platen design. The great benefit according to Zahoransky: stan-dard injection molding machines can run TIM Light vs. the specialized machines typically required.

The molding assembly in the TIM Light is also placed outside the mold on external movable platens. Zahoransky notes that the mold cycle is only made “moderately longer” by the mold platens

At K, a blood transfusion drip chamber will be molded on an Engel e-victory injection molding machine.

Engel will have an automated manufacturing cell

for making needle holders for insulin pens.



TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW:

medical

retracting into the mold.Zahoransky announced plans last year

to expand production at its site in Vogt-land-Saxony, with the new capacity to be used in part on its TIM systems.

Netstal has plans to go bigger, and will target medical with an expanded ELION range.

Netstal will mold polycarbonate infu-sion devices at K 2013 on a ELION 1750-530 with a cycle time of approxi-mately 16 seconds from a 16-cavity tool (Stand 12/A51). The machine is fully cleanroom ready, offering medical molders encapsulated joints, closed drag chains, water-cooled electric motors, and cleanroom cladding for a press it says is “virtually emission-free”.

Low energy consumption is made lower via energy recovery, with braking energy fed back into the internal electri-cal circuit. Netstal claims that at peak efficiency, it is possible to save up to 70% of energy consumption compared to conventional drive systems.

PC for the infusion devices will be supplied by SABIC Innovative Plastics, with tooling and auxiliaries coming by way of Italy from RB/HRS and Piovan, respectively.

The 1750 (175 tons) had been the largest in the ELION series, which includes machines in the 120-, 80-, and 50-ton clamp force range. At K, Net-stal has announced plans to expand the range, adding an approximately 430-ton hybrid drive machine and a 225-ton all-electric (ELION 2200).

ELION originally launched back in 2003, starting with clamping forces of 500 and 1750kN. The clamping force range was extended in 2010 with 2200

and 2800kN models, and again in 2010 with a 3200kN model for Fakuma 2012.

Three plastics plus one filter equal new production method for filter mod-ules at K for Engel (Stand 15/B42C58).

Three different resins and a filter come together in one machine in a pro-cess Engel believes could revolutionize filter system manufacturing in medical initially and fuel systems down the road.

At K, a a blood transfusion drip chamber application will be molded on an Engel e-victory 310H/80W/50V 160 combi three-component injection mold-ing machine, utilizing the company’s ecodrive technology and a clean room design. ABS and a TPE component will be injection molded in a single step, while the filter is mounted and joined by a polypropylene overmolding. In con-

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technology Preview:

medical

ventional systems, two hollow body components are individu-ally injection molded, while the inlay is then fitted and bonded in subsequent process steps.

The e-victory utilizes servoelectric drives for all movements of the index plate mold; which Engel says facilitates the syn-chronous control of mutually independent movements. Engel notes that platen parallelism on its tiebarless injection mold-ing machine ensures mold protection, with platen parallelism automatically adapted to the mold parallelism, as clamping force builds up. Engel notes that platen parallelism is guaran-teed, even where molds are heavy, thanks to prestressing by the patented FlexLink system and the support of the C-frame. An easix multi-axis robot removes the drip chambers and runs them through inspection to check seal tightness.

During the company’s pre-K event at its headquarters in Austria, Engel’s head of research and development, Georg Steinbichler, noted the smaller footprint, both in terms of physical space and capital investment, which are required by the new process.

“Normally you would need three injection molding machines, automation, and then joining,” Bichler said. “In the medical market, companies don’t want to use glue, and they don’t want to weld. This can be used in the future instead of other joining technologies.”needle holders molded from 96-cavity tool

Engel will also feature an automated manufacturing cell for making needle holders for insulin pens at K 2013, partner-ing with the automation specialist Hekuma and moldmaker Braunform. The needle holders are molded from a 96-cavity mold, the cores of which have a diameter of just 0.3 mm. To counter deformation, the electric injection unit has a direct drive set up. The direct drive also makes highly dynamic injection movements and injection speeds of up to 500 mm/sec possible. A camera-based monitoring system identifies and defects, and thanks to cavity specific handling, reject parts are automatically separated. In addition, the injection mold can

carry on producing without worrying about scrap production from the faulty cavity. Engel says the all-electric e-motion 440/220 T achieves cycle times of around five seconds despite the delicate mold cores.

dsX medical tubing

The compact dsX med-tube medical tubing system is a varia-tion of the Davis-Standard’s (Stand 16/A43) widely used medical tubing systems, which have been optimized for both value and versatility, according to the company.

The company states that the dsX med-tube system offers a smaller footprint for clean rooms, language-specific control systems and faster delivery. A unique eco-extruder arrangement allows for processing materials ranging from polypropylene (PP) to fluorinated ethylene polypropylene (FEP) by changing feedscrews. The line includes a melt pump on each extruder for processing thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), nylons, and other medical grade materials.

Customers can run trials on the new line at the Davis-Standard Plastic Packaging Machinery Co. facility in Suzhou, China. The line will be available for trials this summer to pro-vide regional access to dedicated medical tubing equipment for research and development. Davis-Standard also offers a medical tubing R&D line at its Technical Center in Pawcatuck, CT.

Systems are available for single lumen, multi-lumen, IV catheter, corrugated drainage, integrated bump tubing and multi-layer tubing.

Institut für Kunststoffverarbeitung (IKV; Stand 14/C 16) and RWTH Aachen IKV have developed a carrier sys-tem for treatment of overactive bladder, which they will discuss at K 2013. The microsphere drug-delivery system (DDS) they devised consists of a drug-loaded polymer matrix that is embedded in a foamed absorbable carrier system. The DDS is directly placed into the urinary blad-der, and the drug release is controlled by the degradation of the carrier system. In this way, the active agent has a locally lasting effect in the bladder but won’t affect the whole body as is the case with orally ingested tablets. In addition, regu-

global healthcare pacKaging marKet by resin, in terms of volume, through 2018

(millions pounds)

1) Includes polycarbonates, polyamides, COPEs, TPUs, silicones, acrylics, etc.

Source: BCC Research

Caption: PVC will have the slowest growth rate among the major plastics

because it has fallen out of favor with many healthcare providers. Olefinic

plastics will be major winners.

Resins 2012 2013 2018

CAGR%

2013-2018

Polypropylene 2,488 2,647 3,590 6.3

PVC 2,116 2,223 2,835 5.0

HDPE 1,699 1,789 2,299 5.1

LDPE/LLDPE 1,131 1,189 1,541 5.3

Polyesters 1,013 1,076 1,422 5.7

Polystyrenes 526 556 714 5.1

Other (1) 602 651 887 6.4

Total 9,578 10,131 13,282 5.6

medical polymer marKet in china by segment, through 2017 ($ millions)

Source: BCC Research

Caption: Biolastics and elastomers will grow quickly in part because they are

coming from a small base. It remains to be seen if Chinese plastics manufac-

turers can meet the tight quality requirements for medical plastics expected

by European and American device manufacturers.

Products 2011 2012 2017

CAGR%

2012-2017

Medical resins and

fibers

1,529.7 1,752.6 3,606.5 15.5

Medical elastomers 87.3 105.6 258.3 19.6

Biodegradable medical

polymers

52.3 63.6 181.3 23.3

Total 1,669.3 1,921.8 4,046.1 16.1



TECHNOLOGY PREVIEW: medical

lar use of a catheter in short time intervals several times a day is no longer required.

IKV utilizes the CESP (Controlled Expansion of Saturated Polymers) process to make the DDS. CESP allows tempera-ture-sensitive materials, like poly (D,L-lactide-co-glycolide)-co-PEG to be processed. In this case, the material is processed

in a high-pressure 50-bar CO2 atmosphere and low 50°C temperatures. CESP allows a powdery polymer microsphere mixture to be foamed specifically via a pressure-controlled, continuous, variable discharge. Adjusting the carrier’s degra-dation to when medication is needed is possible by the termi-nation of the foam structure. For reproducible manufacturing of the carrier system in the range of micrograms, a dosing unit and adapted cavities are integrated into the process chain. IKV believes the CESP process will allow greater mar-

ket development of more absorbable, drug-eluting implants applications, including porous osteosynthesis plates or stents.

Arburg’s electric Edrive and Alldrive series will dominate its K presence (Stand 13/A13) with five machines running. Three 3200 and 4000 kN machines will cover the higher clamping force range, with multi-component molding to feature prominently, according to the firm. Among the high-lights: the Allrounder 820 A, which completes the high-end electric Alldrive machine series, will debut in Düsseldorf. Both the 4000 kN toggle-type clamping unit and the size 2100 electric injection unit have been newly developed for this machine, closing the tonnage gap between the exist-ing 3200 and 5000 kN presses in the electric clamping unit range.

An Allrounder 470 A will run a 64-cavity mold from Män-ner, producing high-precision dosage units in a cycle time of only two seconds.

Also in medical, Arburg will use an Allrounder 520 A to display how electric machines can operate under clean room conditions. The machine, outfitted in stainless steel, will mold pipettes in a cycle time of around 4.5 seconds on a 64-cavity tool made by Tanner. As an automation component, a Vario-TIP system by Waldorf Technik is used, which has been specially designed for the handling of pipette tips.

Contract manufacturers will play a

bigger role in medical device manufac-

turing and healthcare packaging as they

increase their global footprint.


http://www.heritage-plastics.com/

INJECTION MOLDING MACHINE OUTLOOK

56 GLOBAL PLASTICS REPORT 2013 PLASTICSTODAY.COM

Global injectio n molding machine market to grow by shrinking

From 1990 to 2011, the global mar-ket for injection machines nearly tripled, exploding from 33,700

to 94,320 machines annually, with China leading the way, growing from a 4000-machine/yr country in 1990 to more than 50,000 machines/yr.

Those numbers are courtesy of injec-tion molding machine and automation supplier Engel (Schwertberg, Austria), which rode China’s rise, weathered North America’s fall, and now positions itself for another market undulation, albeit much smaller.

“China’s total market is decreasing,” Engel CEO Peter Neumann said at his company’s headquarters during a pre-K press event earlier this year, “but this is in part because the performance quality and output of machines is going up, so they don’t need such a high number of machines. It’s a trend towards higher qual-ity machines, higher technology machines.”

One year earlier, Neumann was in Shanghai to cut the ribbon on an expan-sion of his company’s plant in China, an addition which more than doubled its space there only four years after it opened the subsidiary.

“We believe in the market; China is the future,” Neumann said at the time. Neumann and other Engel execu-tives navigated the dichotomy of how a company could grow its business in a region that was shrinking by noting that the demand for “higher technol-ogy” machines, which Engel delivers, continued to expand, even while broader demand shrinks. “We have seen the Chi-nese market emerge as one of the fastest growing plastics markets in the world,” Neumann said.

That growth has begun a reversal however that will continue for several years before settling at a new normal, for China and the broader injection molding world.

Market recalibrates

Total sales of injection molding machines globally have dropped every year since 2010, when they hit approximately 95,000, falling to 93,500 in 2011 and 90,000 in 2012, according to Engel. Over the next three years, they will contract further, before settling at 80,000 in 2015.

Peaking at 50,000 units in 2011, Engel forecast that China’s machine demand would fall to 45,000 in 2012 before settling at 35,000/yr by 2020. Over that same stretch, the company

is forecasting that Europe, led by Ger-many, will expand from 9500 to 14,000 machines, while the Americas go from 8030 to 7000 machines, just below their 1990 level of 7500 machines.

“There is a trend to relocate produc-tion to the U.S.,” Neumann said during his company’s pre-K event. “I think this will continue due to energy costs and other factors. I think it will continue for the next few years.”

In China, the contraction is strongest in what Engel calls the “low tech” seg-ment, which fell by 64% from 27,000 machines to only 9600 from 2004 to 2012. Over that same time period, the high tech and commodities segments increased, by 8% and 9% respectively, to annual demand of 28,000 and 51,000.

Explosive growth in China defined the global injection molding machine market for 20 years, but now that country’s recalibration to more sustainable machine consumption, and the revitalization of some previously l anguishing regions like North America, are part of a new and evolving narrative.

TONY DELIGIO

This spring Haitian’s exclusive North American distributor, Absolute Haitian, moved into a new, larger

facility outside Cleveland as the Chinese press maker’s machines gain traction in the U.S. and Canada.


InjectIon MoldIng MachIne outlook

PlastIcstoday.coM global PlastIcs RePoRt 2013 57

A new global machine player

China’s rise as a consumer of injection molding machines coincided with its emergence as a manufacturer of injec-tion molding machines, and with that, the ascension of Haitian. Founded in 1965 with the delivery of its first mold-ing machine in 1972, Haitian has grown from humble beginnings into the top

seller of machines in the world, initially claiming the volume title in 1994 and holding it every year since.

Helmar Franz, chief strategic offi-cer of Haitian International Holdings Limited, laid out the company’s growth in a presentation this year at Absolute Haitian, its exclusive North American distributor.

Speaking at the company’s new Parma, OH facility, purchased to accom-modate its growth in the market, Franz noted that from 2005 to 2010, Haitian’s total revenue grew from 2.5 billion RMB to 7.1 billion RMB ($1.16 billion). For perspective, Engel reported record rev-enue of Euro 950 million ($1.27 billion) for fiscal year 2012/2013, up from Euro 622 million in the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

Over that same five-year stretch, Franz said the number of machines sold by Haitian rocketed from 12,000 in 2005 to 70,000 in 2010. In 2012, however, revenue finished at 6.3 bil-lion RMB with 22,000 machines sold, according to an April 2013 press release that described “significant losses in the Asian machinery industry.”

At the Absolute Haitian event Franz described 2012 as a “sustainable sales per-formance,” but acknowledged that “the last year in China was quite difficult.” Franz, however, said that market watch-ers who were down on China overhyped the market’s difficulties and ignored some

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In 2012, Austrian injection molding machine and automation supplier Engel more than doubled the foot-

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58 global PlastIcs RePoRt 2013 PlastIcstoday.coM

outside influences, including the appoint-ment of a new government.

The end of the China story?

“I was a little surprised by what I read in the press,” Franz said, “saying things like, ‘Maybe there’s a money short-age, maybe the economy will collapse,’ and the increase in GDP was reduced to 7%, which tells you something—reduced to 7%. I don’t know who else has 7%, but of course it comes down from 12% to 7% so maybe everyone says, ‘OK, maybe this is the end of the China story.’ Not at all.’”

For Franz, who has lived in China for the last eight years, 2012 was more about the naming of a new govern-ment, with the top candidates holding contrary economic views, which left the market unsure about which fiscal path China would pursue.

“Everyone wanted to wait to do any-thing to see how [the election process]

would shake out,” Franz said. “People need to be certain. It needs to be clear, who is guiding the country, and which direction they are guiding the country in the coming years.”

Franz said that now the economy has stabilized and his company and others have a better feel for what will happen in the world’s top injection molding machine market going forward. “So this [political uncertainty] is why last year we had a tough environment,” Franz said. “No lack of money or other things I read in the newspapers, but a real change in philosophy, change in approach, and understanding that I have to work within my resources and this is why we lost some top line in 2012.”

In response, Franz said the company cut its sales force by 10%, but despite that gained market share. He noted that Haitian’s 1.2 billion RMB in 2012 oper-ating cash was the highest value it has ever produced.

In August, the company released first-half results for 2013, with sales of 3.6206 billion RMB, representing an increase of 13.9% and 14.7% as com-pared to the first half and second half of 2012, and supporting Franz’s outlook from earlier in the year. Profits increased to 568.2 million RMB, representing an increase of 17.0% when compared to the first half of 2012.

For its part, Haitian is betting big on China and the global injection molding machine market, currently constructing a new 120,000-sq-m (1.29 million-sq-ft) production plant for all-electric machines

near Ningbo which will open at the beginning of 2013. Another plant is planned in Yanshan, with a production area of 150,000 sq m (1.61 million sq ft) for large injection molding machines. These will support the local market, as well as exports, with Haitian shipping around 5000 machines beyond China’s borders annually to about 80 countries.

Trade flows

As companies like Haitian work to pen-etrate markets beyond their shores, they help shape a new flow of machines glob-ally, with former importers becoming net exporters, and vice versa.

Asia produced 74,160 machines in 2012, and of those, 62,700 were shipped within Asia, while 3660 went to Europe; and 4700 arrived in the Americas, accord-ing to Engel’s Neumann. Europe produced 12,800 injection molding machines, with 7500 staying in the European Union, while 1900 went to the Americas and 3000 arrived in Asia. The Americas, meanwhile, manufactured 1240 machines, with 900 of those staying in the U.S.; 300 crossing the Pacific to Asia; and 40 headed the other direction to Europe.

Production of machines by all those regions dropped over the five years from 2007-2012, with the steepest fall coming in Japan where machine manufacture contracted by 34% from 19,600 to 13,000. Chinese production fell by 20%, from 53,500 to 43,000, but a reduction in the number of producers helped it gain share on Japan. The second high-est rate of contraction came in North America, where production fell by 27% from 2007-2012, with the market never returning to peak 2004 levels. Europe’s production of injection molding machines contracted the least, slipping 12% from 12,500 to 11,000.

Haitian’s Helmar Franz has lived in China for the

last 8 years, giving the chief technology officer a

unique perspective on the local market.

Per Engel data, the Chinese market for injection molding machines is coming back to Earth after taking a

giant leap from 1990 to 2011. Other regions have shown steady growth or settling over the same time.

Engel’s management team (left to right) Stefan

Engleder (CTO), Gotthard Mayringer (CFO), Peter

Neumann (CEO) and Christian Pum (CSO).



PlastIcstoday.coM global PlastIcs RePoRt 2013 59

China starts to buy Chinese

Haitian’s Franz noted that Chinese exports of plastics machinery were down slightly in 2012, with more Chinese processors buying domestically. The ratio of local supply : imported machinery jumped from 49:51 in 2011, all the way to 73:12 last year. Franz doesn’t think the shift is done, either, predicting that it could move to 80:20. In terms of the global value of plastics/rubber machines produced, China’s growth rate doubled from 2007 to 2011, rising from 15.9% in 2007 to 30.5% by 2011.

Franz said that China’s plastic machinery sales for all processes stabi-lized over the last three years, after jump-ing 62% from 2009 to 2010.

End markets shift

Low technology injection molding machines have seen the greatest con-traction in the global market, as the machine sector right sizes for a new processing normal. From 2004 to 2012, Engel noted that while what it calls high

tech molding jumped 8% to 28,000 machines, and commodity molding rose 9% to 51,000, low-tech molding fell 64% from 27,000 to 9600 machines.

Over that same time, Neumann said that Engel has watched its market share climb in all markets, rising from 25-30% in Europe, 9-18% in America, 2-10% in Asia, and 9-14% globally.

In Asia, Engel generated record turn-over of Euro 145 million in the 2012-2013 fiscal year. The largest share of that new high watermark came in China. Overall, Engel noted that it has been able to triple its turnover in Southeast Asia over the last two years, and despite a relatively weak 2012-2013 fiscal, Engel also expects sales to increase in India.

“In Europe we’re coming to a certain level where [Engel] can’t gain any more market share,” Neumann said. “There is much more competition from Asia in America. Despite the fact that the Japa-nese have a strong position, we were able to grow our market share dramatically.”

Engel said its most stable segments

are medical and packaging, while others like teletronics and technical molding depend more on what is happening in the broader economy, with automotive being the most “sensitive” segment.

Here too, Engel said market share has grown in all five business units, with the highest growth in medical, packaging, and teletronics. Compared to automotive, however, these segments are smaller. Medical jumped from 19.8 to 34.2% for Engel, while packaging and teletronics more than doubled, climbing from 10.8 to 23.2% and 9.7 to 20.1%, respectively.

Engel noted that it expects further growth of about 5% each year for the next three years. In the three years since the last K, Engel has invested Euro 67 million into its business, including Euro 23 million into Schw-ertberg, Euro 15 million into St. Val-entin, and Euro 12 million into Shang-hai. In addition to machinery, Engel has invested in people, with employ-ment up 40% to 4200.

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InnovatIon In PackagIng

60 global PlastIcs RePoRt 2013 PlastIcstoday.com

Despite report, packaging innovation is alive and well Earlier this year, a study from Visiongain stated that the food packaging market has reached a “plateau” in terms of technology and its ability to carry out its primary duty, which is protecting and extending the life of the foodstuffs within the packaging.

HeatHer caliendo

The report predicts that the market growth will be neither slow nor exces-

sive, with muted growth in the more developed econo-mies of the west offset greater gains by the promising econo-mies of the east. As such, Visiongain has determined that the global food packaging market will attain sales of $251.8 billion in 2013.

Sree Selvam, the materials analyst behind the global food packaging market report, told PlasticsToday that Visiongain consulted with industry experts and full transcripts from these exclusive interviews with We Are Pure, INCPEN and The Packaging Federation are included in the report.

He said from their research, they found that while neither small nor big companies are investing much in innovation, smaller companies are espe-cially hesitant.

“It tends to be that part of the market is very much a standstill for both the big and small boys,” he said. “It comes down to cost, the margins are too small. We have seen a couple of the larger multinational companies be able to afford to do it, but even bigger com-panies are cautious.”

Selvam said that from his point of view, many companies are focusing on branding rather than innovation.

“From an engineering standpoint for the next year and year and half, we

see quite a standstill,” he said. “The big thing at the moment is coming out with the same product, with a slight modifica-tion, that really catches the eye of the consumer rather than changing the struc-ture of the package.”

The study brought up some interesting points and Plastic-

sToday reached out to Dow Chemical Co., UK-based Lin-pac Packaging and Octal to get their viewpoint on pack-aging development.

Innovation never stops

Greg Bunker, marketing manager, flexible food and specialty packag-ing at Dow, said that food packag-ing will never reach a “plateau.”

“There will never be a plateau in terms of innovation and the best reason for that is packaging is a consumer goods market, shaped by consumer preferenc-es,” he said. “Just like things come and go in style, you see the same thing with packag-ing. It’s almost like telling a fashion designer style will never change, I doubt they would agree.”

It’s no surprise that Bun-ker bristles at that idea that innovation is a standstill. After all, Dow launched 42

new products for the packaging sector in 2012. This equates to

nearly one new product per week in the year.Scott Collick, TS&D director at

Dow, said the company receives, on average, about two customers a week requesting new packaging innovation. These requests run the gamut from people looking into replacing cans with pouches to dropping glass in favor of flexible packaging.

Dow Chemical’s packaging division believes

stand-up pouches continue to deliver packaging

innovation.



http://www.ritewaymachining.com/




One development push Collick cited was the aging population. For instance, many are requesting easy-to-open pack-aging as they currently struggle with removing lids or caps from jars and other forms of packaging. Dow’s Sealution peel polymers reportedly deliver consis-tent peel strength over time, enabling strong seal strength for package fillers (such as food companies) while making packages easier to open for consumers.

Collick said that peel polymers can be applied to all types of food packaging from cereal bags to fresh produce.

“No one likes a hard-to-open pack-age,” Collick said. “That is just an example of where consumers’ frustration helped innovate.”

When it comes to launching new products, Bunker said the company spends plenty of time evaluating trends in each market and seeing which mate-rial will best serve those trends.

“It’s never been a more exciting time to be in packaging,” he said. “Through the combination of sustainable aware-ness, fighting food waste and just recog-nizing that flexible is the best choice—they make it an exciting time.”

For Collick, the question of innova-tion comes down to a single premise.

“New humans arrive on the planet every day and getting food to those people is a critical mission,” he said. “Packaging plays a vital role in ensuring that the food is safe and secure. With all the babies arriving each day, it calls for a lot of great innovation.”

3-5 year R&D planning window

With innovation in her job title, Jo Stephenson, VP of marketing and inno-vation at UK-based Linpac Packaging, clearly believes innovation is prevalent in food packaging.

“The development of technologies for the packaging market is accelerat-ing all the time, so I would disagree very much so with the idea that we have reached a plateau,” she said. “At Linpac Packaging, we are working on new polymer technologies to develop extended barrier (shelf life) performance of packs in flexible and rigid plastics and we are utilizing new antimicrobial additives to improve hygiene and safety in protein packaging applications.”

Stephenson said that the company is looking at the modification of existing polymers to improve functionality. For example, Linpac is investing in scientific research and development projects that look at increasing the temperature resistance of current polymers to extend their use into microwave and oven pack applications.

Still, Stephenson acknowledged that one could argue that, in terms of funda-

mental packaging developments, the ‘low hanging fruit’ has been picked.

“However, materials science and new technologies being brought into the packaging world, such as the application of plasma treatments, new print software

technologies, etc., will continue to ramp the pace of change well into the next few decades,” she said.

From an R&D perspective, Linpac works across a number of fronts to make sure it remains in touch with the latest trends and consumer needs. The com-pany conducts consumer studies on a regular basis to further its understanding of what drives consumer demand.

“We work with partners across our industry—packers, fillers, machine sup-pliers, label companies—to understand the latest trends in their technologies and ensure our packs meet their effi-ciency needs,” she said. “Finally, we work with key industry trade associa-tions and NGOs to further our under-standing of issues such as food waste, recycling, and the latest legislative changes which, again, drive our research and development processes.”

Linpac Packaging’s “R Fresh MB Split Pack” is designed to answer consumer demand for smaller meal

portions.

Linpac’s Rfresh Elite range of rPET trays are 100%

recyclable at the end of their service life.

“Packaging plays a vital role in ensuring that the

food is safe and secure. With all the babies arriving

each day, it calls for a lot of great innovation.”


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Linpac Packaging works on a 3-5 year R&D planning window using a typical stage-gate structure to manage its project priorities.

One example of a new innovation from Linpac is its Rfresh Elite technol-ogy, a patented approach to ensure the recyclability of rigid plastic packaging trays in Europe.

Stephenson said the key challenge for rigid rPET trays today is the incorpora-tion of a laminated PE base film, which is included to facilitate the heat sealing of PE lidding films to the trays. Linpac has developed a patented flange sealing sys-tem that enables the elimination of this base film lamination step, removing 3% weight from the tray, reducing its carbon footprint, and enabling recyclability.

Another area where Stephenson sees innovation in food packaging is the application of nanotechnology.

“While there are still concerns about the degree to which nanomaterials can leach into food from the packaging, and the effect they may have on the health of consumers, most research so far looks promising, and the benefits are highly

tangible,” she said. “Several nano-enhancements for packaging are already on the market, helping to prolong the shelf life of food and making it easier to manufacture, process, and manage.”

For some time now, food has been packaged in a protective, oxygen-free atmosphere. Standard packing film made from flexible plastics, however, is slightly perme-able to oxygen and other gases. Over time, this means that the protective atmosphere can leak out, and oxygen can leak in, damaging the food.

A coating of metal or glass, which is totally impermeable to gases, would prevent this from happening. But Stephenson said this is impractical as it would reduce flexibility, and would be much more expensive than plastic packaging.

“This is where nanotechnology comes to the rescue—a coating just a few nanometers thick is suf-ficient to create an impermeable layer, without compromising on flexibility or adding a great deal to the cost,” she said.

Innovation makes business sense

Octal Chief Operating Officer Joe Baren-berg said that anytime you have a truly free market, suppliers are competing to serve the needs of their customer base. A clear cut competitive advantage is innovation.

“We don’t believe innovation has reached a plateau, there’s always room to get something better than it currently is,” he said. “Think about comput-ers when the first calculator came out, certainly those same people would be flabbergasted with what we can do with a smartphone. I think innovation will always have a place.”

Innovation is something that the clear rigid food packaging materials supplier prides itself on. In 2008, Octal introduced its direct-to-sheet PET

product, DPET, which is produced with what the company says is “the smallest carbon footprint of any PET product in the world.” Octal’s propri-etary process enables it to produce high quality DPET with 67% less energy, fewer machines, and a shorter manufac-turing period when compared to con-ventionally produced PET. The com-pany’s direct-to-sheet process eliminates five stages of the conventional sheet making process, which includes pelletz-ing and drying.

The market has responded, with Octal reporting sales of $1.5 billion.

Barenberg said innovation isn’t only about product development. He said Octal was founded on the idea that it could build a better company that produces a better product, which at the same time, is also better for the environment.

For example, the petrochemicals used to make DPET are transported through an underground pipeline, which reduces the emissions that would be required to ship the petrochemicals via truck or rail. The proximity of the plant to the Indian Ocean means that Octal’s products can be shipped primarily via sea freight, which further reduces emissions. Additionally, the company said that 70% of DPET is shipped pallet-less, maximizing the amount of PET product per shipment and therefore reducing the number of trips and weight of each load.

“There are so many stories of compa-nies making great inventions that really took the world by storm for a period of time,” he said. “But if we don’t con-tinue to evolve, our competitors will certainly do so. Great companies are thinking about the next thing to drive growth and reward shareholders and customers with a better product. I don’t think there is an industry out there that doesn’t have someone who doesn’t want to be innovative whether in its product or service platform.”

An example of Dow Chemical’s 100% polyethylene (PE)

stand up pouch technology that is said to offer better recy-

clability with the existing PE bag and film recovery streams.

this is where nanotechnology comes to the rescue—

a coating just a few nanometers thick is sufficient to

create an impermeable layer.


plasticstoday.comThe Global Community for Plastics Professionals

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Packaging in EmErging markEts

66 global Plastics rEPort 2013 Plasticstoday.com

Packaging the globeWhen economies transition to emerging status, driven by the creation of a middle class, the growth is felt first and deepest in the packaging segment, as newly disposable income is spent on packaged goods and foods.

The global packaging sector is said to be the third largest industry in the world. Smithers Pira estimates the

industry will reach a value of $820 bil-lion by 2016 and believes that much of this growth is attributed to an increasing demand for packaging in emerging and transitional economies.

In other words, now is as good a time as any to pay attention to the different packaging demands across the world.

For a refresher, the largest emerging and developing economies are referred to as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and also MIST (Mexico, Indone-sia, South Korea and Turkey).

China and India are often considered to be the largest. In this report, Plastic-sToday has compiled interviews with various members of the packaging supply chain to learn more about trends in these emerging markets.

Food driving China’s appetite for

packaging

China’s packaging industry is forecast to reach a total output of nearly $300 bil-lion in 2016, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.0% from 2013-2016, according to Research and Markets.

Within packaging, plastics account for about 31% of the market size.

At Chinaplas 2013, Gloucester Engi-neering Co. (GEC) President and CEO Carl Johnson told PlasticsToday that China’s emerging middle class is chang-ing many aspects of the country, includ-ing demand for packaging. In particular, packaging produced with polypropylene is on the rise.

“There are more and more dual-income families,” Johnson said. “People are spending less time at the wet markets and there is a big push, especially here in China, for food packaging items.”

Wim Van De Velde, global Millad product line manager for additive pro-ducer Milliken & Co., echoed thoughts about a PP trend in China. He cited recyclability as one reason.

“One thing we see in China, for example, is the shifting away from expanded polystyrene, and we’re seeing a shift to PP for packaging because of its recyclability,” he said. “The general trends in China are that the middle class continues to grow and we see more and more supermarkets offer-ing packaged foods. I think everyone around the world wants a lighter mate-rial and that’s good for PP because of the density advantage.”

In the China packaging study, Research and Markets stated that, envi-ronmentally friendly plastic packaging materials such as PVDC and EVOH with high barrier property and easy degradability will usher in a large mar-

ket space in the future.

13 markets embracing flexible

packaging

PCI Films Consulting recently identified a list of 13 emerging flexible packaging markets including Poland, Russia, Tur-key, Mexico, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Nigeria and South Africa. Collectively these markets, valued at $14 billion, have grown by almost 70% since 2006 and now account for 20% of total world demand.

One of the key findings is that although a number of these emerging markets have been affected by the global economic downturn, they have weathered the crisis well, with demand growth aver-aging almost 11% per year since 2006, led by countries including India, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. In general, all emerging markets have illustrated strong growth

Additives specialist Milliken & Co.’s nucleating agent helps produce a clear polypropylene cup for bever-

age packaging.



Plasticstoday.com global Plastics rEPort 2013 67

over the past five years, with only three of the 13 posting overall growth of less than 30% between 2006 and 2011.

Report author Steve Hillman said the growth in the markets is attributed to several reasons such as a higher GDP, high population growth, urbanization, the development of retail outlets and a changing consumer lifestyle.

“Also, there’s more packaged foods where previously the food supply was not in packaged form,” he said. “One thing to note is the demand is mainly driven by packers and converters as well as consumers. Even in emerging markets consumers are becoming more aware of the environment and being eco friendly.”

Hillman believes the growth trend in those markets will continue.

“Strong and sustained growth over the next few years will see these 13 mar-kets offering many investment oppor-tunities for all those involved across the flexible packaging supply chain,” he said. “This is particularly the case in terms of building converter expertise in the faster growing sectors, such as high barrier films and retort pouches.”

A closer look at South Africa

Earlier this year, stakeholders and deci-sion makers in the South African plastics industry met for a conference in Johan-nesburg, which was hosted by Plastic SA, the local industry association.

Plastics SA Executive Director Anton Hanekom said that about 45% of audi-ence members believed that packaging holds the most growth potential for the local plastics industry.

At the same time, he said that packag-ing has come to symbolize the issue of waste in modern day society.

“We know that [plastic packaging] ensures hygiene and reduces the risk of product wastage due to contamination, providing a physical barrier between a product and the external environment,”

Hanekom said. “Unfortunately, however, such convenience has come at an envi-ronmental price, and the rise in environ-mental consciousness in recent decades has brought the issue of packaging firmly under the spotlight. When asked what role brand owners should play in plastic packaging, 51% of the audience members felt they had a responsibility to design the packaging with effective recy-cling in mind. About 32% believed the brand owner also had a responsibility to educate consumers about the recyclabil-ity and recycled content of its products.

“It is clear that there is a great need to raise the profile of the plastics indus-try and the work that is being done by brand owners and converters to ensure that plastics are manufactured in a way that is sustainable and environmentally responsible,” Hanekom said.

Another hot topic that was discussed by the panel was the issue of bioplastics and whether or not they had a real role to play as an alternative in the plastics packaging industry. The vast majority of the audience members felt that bioplas-tics are not an option due to the high costs and potentially negative impact they can have on the recycling stream.

Different packaging demands for

Western and Eastern countries

Jo Stephenson, VP of marketing and innovation at UK-based Linpac Packag-

ing, believes that as emerging markets develop, many are not going through the traditional development steps seen in Western markets, but instead are leap-frogging straight to latest technologies and systems wherever possible.

“For example, Linpac Packaging tra-ditionally develops foam trays and film overwrap systems for the protein packag-ing market where meat, fish and poultry are prepared back of store, but, over time, we see maturing of the food supply chain and development of third party packers, which demand rigid Modified Atmosphere Packs with extended shelf life performance,” she said. “This has been the case in many Middle Eastern and Asian markets where we are seeing quick adoption of the third party packer model and sophisticated pack systems being incorporated.”

Scott Collick, Technical Services & Development Specialist (TS&D) direc-tor at Dow, agreed and said that eating habits are key drivers in meeting the various consumer needs across the world. For example, there are different packag-ing requirements to package hummus as opposed to fresh-cut apples.

“There is a great opportunity in both emerging and established geographies for packaging innovation around shelf life and convenience,” he said. “I think there will be growth in emerging geogra-phies for quite some time.”

Bottled water is big businesss in emerging mar-

kets, driven by rising disposable incomes and

urbanization in most regions.

PP dry food packaging uses a traditional clarifier on

the left compared to the one on the right clarified

with Milliken’s Millad NX 8000.



68 global Plastics rEPort 2013 Plasticstoday.com

Southeast Asian markets are

growing fast

When the global economy dipped in 2008 and again in 2010, opportunities for growth in Southeast Asia still existed. The convergence of ASEAN into a single market, the ASEAN Economic Com-munity (AEC), by 2015, presents further opportunities for companies in the plas-tics and rubber sectors that are seeking a larger market share, especially with the slowdowns in Europe and the U.S., according to Messe Düsseldorf GmBH, organizer of K 2013.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s 600 million con-sumer base is treading toward an opti-mistic growth trend. Although tied to the U.S. and Europe for their export revenues, the shift to regional consump-tion has since increased and has buffered the group against the global crisis. The region’s plastics industry has shown an average annual growth of 9%, against declining demand, volatile prices, capac-ity constraints and labor shortages.

Firming up trade initiatives, such as the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) in 2010, which has cut impor-tation tariffs from 0 to 5%, as well as the ASEAN-Korea Free Trade Area (AKFTA); the trade pact with China (ACFTA), and the Expanded Economic Engagement (3E) initiative are expected to bolster investments opportunities for the ASEAN. This should be furthered with the consolidation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015, which aims for a single market and pro-duction base, with duty waived among the member countries.

Improved economic conditions and favorable manufacturing environments in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines have drawn significant investments to the engineering plastics market in Southeast Asia.

The forerunner in the packaging sector is Indonesia, which has a sizable domestic demand from its food, beverage and phar-maceutical industries; with the sector’s revenue climbing 11% to EUR 3.27 bil-lion ($4.31 billion) in 2012. Indonesia’s plastic consumption went up to 3 million tonnes in 2012 and almost 70% of the total plastics use was accounted for by the food and beverage packaging sectors.

The biorenewable materials market, which according to Frost & Sullivan is expected to grow at a rate of over 19% until 2018 (Strategic Analysis of the Asia-Pacific Biorenewable Materi-als Market), is the target of Thailand’s government-initiated strategy to turn the country into a bioplastics hub by 2021. It also hinges on the Thailand’s biobased polylactic acid (PLA) capacity, which will increase to 721,000 tonnes in 2020, according to the National Innovation Agency (NIA) of Thailand and Nova Institute of Germany. This is against the Asian capacity for PLA, which is expect-ed to reach more than 350,000 tonnes. But most of the capacity will be exported as domestic demand still remains weak.

Nigerian plastic companies to

exhibit at K 2013

The world’s largest plastic show will have an increased presence from Nigeria,

according to Trade Fair Services Limited, the West African regional representatives of Messe Düsseldorf, organizers of K 2013.

While previously many companies from that region served as visitors, several Nigerian companies are now becoming exhibitors themselves.

Sarsoli Industries, the first and only manufacturer of masterbatch additives in Nigeria, is one example. The com-pany was frequent visitors to the fair and decided this year that K is the perfect venue to launch the ‘made in Nigeria’ tag to the world.

In fact, Sarsoli was actually one of the first companies to open a factory in Nige-ria. The company makes black, white and color masterbatches as well as producing fillers for flexible packaging woven sacks, chairs, tables, shopping bags and more.

The growth of the plastics industry in Africa continues to show tremendous potential, the association stated. While Asia tops the global plastics consumption chart with about 43%, Africa and the Middle East feature a combined share of just 7%, demonstrating how much promise still exists.

The most reflective index of promise is actually in the per capita demand for plastic materials on the African conti-nent, the publication stated.

According to Plastics Europe Market Research Group (PEMRG) demand is growing at 4% per year and will exhibit spikes from an average of 3 kg per capita shown in the 1980’s to as high as 16 kg per capita in 2015.

Coping with plastic waste

in emerging markets, a new

approach

David Katz isn’t your typical entrepre-neur, and for proof, look no further than his latest venture. The Plastic Bank aims to make currency out of the abundance of plastic waste found in many emerging markets. The unique concept comes from a a very unique individual.Not only has Katz personally consulted with more than 700 businesses about the use and implementation of logistic tech-nologies, he’s also a MMA fighter. Katz says his newest project is the product of a “lifelong journey.”

Inspired by lotus leaves, TOYAL LOTUS is an innovative functional packaging material used for yogurt con-

tainer lids.



Plasticstoday.com global Plastics rEPort 2013 69

“I enjoy the beach and find myself most at home there,” he said. “I have been so discouraged, as the more I travel, that it’s been difficult to find places that haven’t been spoiled by people viewing the beach as a dumping ground.”

“For instance, I took a trip to the South China Sea and I wanted to go to a dive site and as I looked for a place, I read a review that there was an over-whelming amount of plastic, in fact the plastic was more visible than the sand,” he said. “It’s a catastrophe. I’m not an environmentalist, but a humanitarian, and I know plastic waste truly does affect people.”

So, like many people, Katz felt disillu-sioned with the amount of plastic waste on beaches. This is when other influenc-es started to help feed an idea. One day he took his son to an arcade where they played video games in order to receive tickets for prizes.

“I saw that there is a real incentive to play games in order to get toys. I could tell the value of the tickets is far greater than the value of the toys they exchange them for,” he said. “I started to think about how to incentivize people and what they react to. How to make and provide value in what people discard and create a currency that was tradable, that would be a big incentive.”

With that, Katz established The Plastic Bank, an organization designed to remove plastic waste from the world’s oceans, beaches and waterways while at the same time empowering impoverished people to raise their standard of living.

“Poverty affects so many around the world,” he said. “But if you can free their minds and show they can contribute to society and to a solution, that is giving people hope. When they look at garbage around them, the plastic that is ruining their community, and change their eyes where they view it as gold – that will change everything.”

How it works

The organization wants to establish ‘Plastic Banks’ in impoverished areas that have an abundance of plastic waste. People in the area will collect the plas-tic waste and have the opportunity to exchange it as a type of currency.

When operational, The Plastic Bank will exchange harvested waste plastic for micro-credit loans and access to 3D print shops, making what was once garbage into the raw material for products like tools, parts, household items and more, which the organization believes will allow individuals to be self-sustaining.

Katz said the number one ques-tion he is asked is why can’t people exchange the plastic for cash. But he said the idea is not to simply hand out money, but to give the impoverished people a chance to become entrepre-neurs of their own.

A major focus will be on educating and empowering local people to reveal the value in themselves and to see the value in transforming repurposeable plas-tics into necessities and entrepreneurial opportunities. Additional efforts will go toward community collection projects that raise the overall standard of living in host communities.

“Why give cash when you give them the opportunity to be creative and look for solutions in their society? That is much more powerful,” he said.

Many of the impoverished areas The Plastic Bank is targeting do not have much of a recycling infrastructure in place. So the organization is working with MBA Polymers, a global company that recovers plastics from end-of-life durable goods. MBA has more than 300 million lb/year of processing capacity in Europe, China and the U.S. to turn waste into recycled plastics. MBA works with manufacturers across the world to close-the-loop by replacing virgin plastics with MBA plastics in their new products.

“We have recruited the world-leading expert in plastic recycling to ensure that we can recycle any piece of plastic that we receive,” he said. “We are serious about revealing value in every single piece of plastic that litters this planet.”

Work is underway on the first plastic repurposing center, slated to open in Lima, Peru next year. “The more people demand products made from recycled social plastic, the more companies will start to meet that demand,” Katz said.

Demand for clean water remains one of the key

drivers of the rise of plastics in emerging markets.

Sealed Air brings helps bring greater clarity to to its lightweight Cryovac PP chilled food packaging with

Milliken’s Millad NX 8000.


Brazil

70 GloBal Plastics rePort 2013 Plasticstoday.com

In the run up to both events, the country is expected to boost out-lays for infrastructure development,

including transportation upgrades and new and improved sporting venues. Immediately prior to and during the massive gatherings, consumption will spike for a number of plastics heavy markets. The timing is superb as the Bra-zilian plastics markets did more braking than accelerating in 2012, and in 2013, the country endured widespread civil unrest, further hampering business.

Prior to those mass demonstrations, conversion of plastics in the first quarter of 2013 was up 2.6% compared to the year ago quarter, according to the Brazil-ian Plastics Association (ABIPLAST). That group’s “diverse” plastics category grew by 4.3%, due in large part to an expansion in the automotive market, while the packaging sector also showed healthy activity, rising by 4.0%.

Apparent consumption of converted

plastics reached a value of 15 billion reals ($7 billion). The country ran a larger trade deficit in converted plastics, grow-ing from a gap of real 515 million ($252 million) in the first quarter of 2012 to 598 million ($293 million) in the first three months of 2013, as exports fell and imports grew.

Although a stronger real added some headwinds, with the currency climbing 25% in the last two years, the Brazilian plastics machinery industry continues to see gains in its exports, particularly with-in Latin America, thanks in large part to an assist from its machinery association and the Brazilian government, coming in the form of the Brazil Machinery Solu-tions program. That endeavor is a joint effort between the Brazilian Machinery Association (ABIMAQ) and the Brazilian government’s export program, APEX.

The Brazil Machinery Solutions branding was created in 2010 to relaunch the program, and after develop-

ing a list of 44 countries and examining their trade flows in machinery, the group targeted specific nations as potential outlets for Brazilian equipment. These included Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, U.S., India, South Africa, and Russia, among others.

Since 2010, exports of Brazilian machinery jumped 45% to a value of more than $15 million. The country still ran deficits in equipment trade, which rose from $13.9 million in 2010 to $15.0 million in 2011 before falling to $14.9 million in 2012.

Plastics machinery exports jumped from $52.6 million to $97.8 million over 2010 to 2011, before falling in 2012 to $79.5 million. Imports, which vastly outnumber exports, followed a similar pattern jumping from $565 million to $888 million from 2010 to 2011, before dropping to $669 mil-lion in 2012, closing the total plastics machinery trade gap to $589.9 million.

Automotive back in the fast lane

After automotive production hit the brakes in Brazil for the first time in a decade in 2012, the sector promptly stepped back on the gas. The Brazilian auto industry completed the first half of 2013 at breakneck speed, setting pace for what could be a record year. According to Reuters, production averaged about 16,000 vehicles per day in June for the fourth straight month. That pushed out-put up by 19% in the past six months compared to the comparable 2012 time

Brazil’s home field advantageAll eyes will be on Brazil for the next three years, as it hosts two of the world’s premier sporting events: the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Will Brazil be ready? If it is, plastics will have played a key role.

The value of stadium construction and infrastructure improvements in the run up to the FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil could exceed $17 billion by some estimates.


BRAZIL


period. Industry consultant Anfavea is forecasting that car and truck manufac-turing in 2013 will ultimately rise 3.5-4.5% over 2012.

According to the IHS, Brazil’s light vehicle production will grow at a CAGR of nearly 6% through 2020, when it will approach 5 million. At that time, Brazil will only trail, in order, China, the U.S., Japan, India, and Germany. Goldman Sachs is forecasting even faster growth, saying the Brazilian market will rise from 3.6 million automobiles in 2011 to 5.7 million in 2020.

Medical market BRIC’s strongest

In terms of health expenditure per cap-ita, Brazil is the leading country of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group with spending of $964, followed by Russia ($549), South Africa ($320), China ($208), and India ($56). Spending on devices in Brazil is pegged at $3.5 billion, and is growing the fastest. “It’s expected that by 2016 the four BRIC countries of Brazil, Rus-

sia, India and China will be amongst the top ten of the world’s largest life science markets,” a BricPartner report stated.

Packaging holds biggest potential

In an Export Plastic interview, Paulo Teixeira, financial director of the National Institute of Plastic and man-aging director of Abiplast, said that Brazilian plastics segments related to agricultural products, such as beef, chicken, fruits, and vegetables, which utilize plastics for packaging and sales, are a key target for growth. “One of the great opportunities in Brazil is the export of perishable foods such as meat, soy, and fruit,” Teixeira said.

The flexible packaging sector grew by an average of 5.7% per year from 2006 to 2012, with that rate accelerating to 7.5% from 2010-2012, according to the Brazilian Flexible Plastics Packaging Association (ABIEF). Flexible packaging, read extru-sion, accounts for nearly half (48%)

of Brazil’s resin consumptio n, utilizing 3.7 billion tons in 2012, according to ABIEF.

Like this Ricardo Pocci mural in São Paulo, Brazil’s plas-

tics market looks to have a colorful future.

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Russia


The more than 7 million tonnes of plastics that Russia converted in 2012, was 12% higher than it consumed in 2011, and it accounted for 8% of all European primary

plastics used, according to BricPartner. That double-digit growth could accelerate, however, given that the average per capita consumption of plastic within Russia is roughly half that of Western Europe’s.

As consumption expands, conversion grows, and machine orders follow. Some estimates placed the value of injection molding machine imports into Russia at Euro 120.3 million in 2011, as the country’s molders look to turn over a deteriorating fleet. BricPartner estimates that there are about 2400 Russian companies currently engaged in plastic processing, with more than 50% of the country’s injection molding machines requir-ing replacement within the next 2 to 3 years.

“As Russian companies lack the knowledge and know how to be able to manufacture modern plastic machinery,” the BricPartner report stated, “then it means that the majority

of the technology will need to be imported. So there are still huge opportunities for companies to fulfill this demand in Russia.”

Packaging increasingly a domestic affair

In terms of production of plastic packaging, Russia lags behind Western Europe.

Plastic bottles and vials used primarily for non-alcoholic bever-ages constitute 65-70% of the market, while 10-12% is used for oil packaging. The remaining 18-25% is used for other prod-ucts such as beer, household chemicals, and cosmetics.

BricPartner notes that in the past, most packaging in Rus-sia was imported, but today the majority of domestic con-sumption is fed by domestic production. “There has been a boom in the amount of international food manufacturers who now manufacture locally in Russia,” the report stated, “and they require modern packaging.”

Medical displays symptoms of growth

In terms of health expenditure per capita, Russia at $549 was second amongst the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) behind only Brazil. Russia was also second in medical device spending, investing $5.1 billion, compared to China’s $7.8 billion. By 2016, Russia is expected to join its fellow BRICs in the top 10 life science markets globally.

Auto market to overtake Germany

Russia’s total production of all motor vehicles fell 3.5% year on year to just over 1 million in the first half of 2013, accord-ing to ASM Holding. Sales of all vehicles fell 9.7% year on year to 1.4 million units over the first 6 months of 2013. Boston Consulting Group forecasts that Russia’s automotive market, however, will grow by an average annual rate of 6% through 2020, reaching annual sales of 4.4 million, compared to 2.9 million in 2012. If it does so, it will overtake Germany and become the fifth largest market globally.

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INDIA

74 GlobAl PlAstIcs RePoRt 2013 PlAstIcstoDAy.com

India follows China’s path towards future plastics powerhouse

It was at that time that an Internation-al Monetary Fund bailout required that the country undertake a series of

structural economic reforms. Since then, it has been tracking the same trajec-tory in key indicators like GDP growth, foreign direct investment, and GDP per capita as China, the economic miracle of our times. If you line up 1991 with 1979 and China’s “opening up” under Deng Xiaoping, India is traveling down the same upwardly mobile path started on by China 12 years before it.

India has an estimated middle class of more than 350 million, with forecasts that its consumer market will become the fifth largest in the world by 2025. The country’s share of global GDP is forecast to go from 2% in 2004 to 17% in 2050, behind only China (28%) and the U.S. (26%), according to Booz & Company’s Global Insights Database.

“Life expectancy has more than dou-bled, literacy

rates have quadrupled, health condi-tions have improved, and a sizeable middle class has emerged,” the report stated. Life expectancy at birth in India in 2011 was 67 years, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.

Plastics emerge as a key industry

The Indian plastics industry employs about 4 million people with more than 2000 exporting companies, according to India’s Plastics Export Promotion Coun-cil. The sector has more than 30,000 processors, which are predominantly small shops, with 85-90% considered small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Plastics have been targeted in the gov-ernment’s most recent 5-year plan (12th, 2012-2017). In that document, the government noted that “although plastics is capital and technology intensive, the downstream sector is a major avenue for large-scale employment.”

From a relatively small base, India’s plastics exports have grown,

expanding at a rate of 19.9% since 2007

and topping $7 bil-

lion

for 2011-2012. (As a comparison, the U.S. plastics industry had 2011 exports of $58.5 billion, up 9.5% from 2010).

A falling rupee is lifting prices for Indian manufacturers, however, as those companies are often forced to import the materials, machinery, and components they need to fabricate goods.

Despite this, Plastindia forecasts that India’s plastics processing sector will grow from 69,000 to 150,000 machines by 2020. Annual consumption of plastics will double from 7.5 million to 15 mil-lion tonnes by 2015, making the country the third largest consumer of plastics in the world. Over the next decade, demand for plastics is forecast to triple.

The association reports that the plas-tics industry in India has been growing at a rate of nearly 15% per year. Key markets include agriculture, packaging, automotive, electronics, healthcare, infra-structure, and consumer durables.

Petrochemicals consumption is projected to hit 53.2 million tonnes/yr by 2016-2017, up from 31.9 mil-lion tonnes/yr in 2011-2012, according to Singhi Advisors Pvt. Ltd. That firm believes the plastics industry will reach a value of $30 billion by 2015.

Automotive hits the brakes before

flooring the gas

In a post entitled “Auto market run-ning out of gas”, the Indian Federation of Automobile Dealers Assn. (FADA) reported that car sales in February 2013 marked a 12-year low. Passenger cars felt the harshest impact, falling by

August 15, 1947 marks the official date of India’s independence from Britain but its economic independence wouldn’t come until 44 years later on July 24, 1991.

The automotive market, led by local car makers like Tata, is accelerating rapidly in India once again, after

a recent slow down.


INDIA

PlAstIcstoDAy.com GlobAl PlAstIcs RePoRt 2013 75

25.7% for their fourth straight monthly drop. Market leader Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. watched domestic passenger vehicle sales fall by 9% year over year to 97,955 units, but they faired better than Tata Motors. At Tata, domestic passenger vehicle sales plummeted by 69.1% to 10,418 in February 2013 compared 33,730 a year earlier.

Things have not gotten better as spring turned to summer on the sub-continent. In July, FADA reported that Indian car sales fell for a record ninth month in a row in July, dropping by 7.4%. In his August letter to members, FADA President Mohan Himatsingka struck a somber tone, noting that a slow-down in Indian factory activity deepened in July, when orders contracted by the most in more than four years, suggesting what he called “a broad stagnation in the manufacturing sector.”

The domestic sales growth rate for 2011-12 was a respectable 12.24%, as it topped 17.3 million vehicles, includ-ing two wheelers, passenger vehicles, three wheelers and commercial vehicles, according to Society of Indian Automo-bile Manufacturers (SIAM). Production hit 20.3 million vehicles for the same year, up only 6.83%.

The industry will be hard pressed to finish up in 2013. SIAM said domes-tic sales from April to July 2013 were down 2.09% compared to the same period in 2012, with July marking eight straight months of contraction.

A brighter road ahead

Despite current challenges, a 2011 Booz & Co. report called India “a key pillar of global automotive market,” forecasting that it will soon exceed Europe’s top mar-kets of Germany, France, and the U.K. and become the fourth largest market in the world. This is part of a greater shift in the industry’s “center of gravity,” accord-ing to Booz. In 1980, the global market for vehicles, including passenger, com-mercial and two wheelers, was 60 million, with 7% in Asia/Japan compared to 42% in Europe and 41% in North America. By 2009, the market had reached 102 million, with 45% in Asia/Japan, 32% in Europe and 18% in North America. By 2020, the global market for vehicles will be more than double 2009 levels, hitting

205 million units. Of that, fully 65% will be in Asia/Japan, with 20% in Europe and 15% in North America.

By 2030, Booz predicts that India, with 11.7 million light passenger vehicles sold annually, will be part of a new Big 3, joining China (40.7 million) and the U.S. (17.6 million).

Medical market gets government

backing

The Indian healthcare industry is fore-cast to grow 15% annually, doubling from a value of $79 billion in 2012 to $160 billion by 2017. That’s according to a June 2013 report from India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF). IBEF con-sidered hospitals, medical infrastructure, medical devices, clinical trials, outsourc-ing, telemedicine, health insurance, and medical equipment in its study.

That growth will, in part, be prompt-ed by the Indian government. In its Twelfth Five Year Plan, covering 2012-17, the Indian government said it would increase health expenditures to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the plan’s time frame. Further stimulus comes from the fact that the government allows 100% foreign direct investment for health and medical services, according to IBEF.

Packaging’s promise

As more and more of India’s popula-tion of 1.2 billion are fed with pack-

aged foods, the hunger for rigid and flexible plastics packaging on the subcontinent will be insatiable. Why? India is the world’s second largest pro-ducer of food behind only China, and total food production there is expected to double over the next decade.

India’s packaged food segment is expected to grow 9% reaching $100.19 billion by 2030, according to a report by CII-McKinsey. Plastics packaging cur-rently uses 3.5 million tonnes of plastics, with that figure forecast to grow to 9 million tonnes by 2020.

Multinational packaging players are already taking notice. In June, Tetra Pak opened its second largest plant in the world in India. The Chakan facility near Pune, which received an investment of $107 million, trails only Tetra Pak’s Swedish facility in total size. The added capital will allow it to double capacity to annual produc-tion of 16 billion packages. In January, MeadWestvaco made a $184 million investment in its industrial packaging operations in India, with the goal of tripling sales.

Here too, the Indian government is playing a stimulative role to boost domestic plastics processing. In its Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-2017), it said it would “encourage use of plas-tic packaging in key applications, for example, milk packaging.”

Tata’s Pixel, at just over 3 meters in length, and with “zero turn” drive, is described by the company as a

“fresh city car concept” for Europe, as the Indian automaker looks to boost exports.


China


China moves from export driven to consumption focused

At 46 kg, per capita plastics consump-tion in China is just one-third the level of developed countries, where

it can range from 120 to 200 kg, with some estimates of the U.S. rate at 170 kg. As the country consumes more plastics, the government’s plan is for those materi-als to be domestically produced.

As part of its twelfth Five-Year Plan, the Chinese government announced a separate “Plan for New Materials” in September 2012 that outlined ambitious goals for the domestic production of key raw materials, including plastics. The plan sets up explicit growth targets for new chemical materials, whose production value is expected to hit some RMB 260 billion ($42.4 billion) by 2015, growing at a compound annual rate of 16%. From 2009 to 2015, the target is for China’s self-sufficiency in new chemical materials to rise from 56% to 76%.

The Chinese government has said it will prioritize the development of six types of new materials over the next five years. According to ChinaMining.org, the country is seeking “economies of scale” in titanium alloys, stainless steel, energy storage materials, semiconducting materi-als, butyl rubber, and polycarbonate.

Per the plan, material manufacturers must set aside 5% of their annual rev-enue towards research. The goal: China hopes to create 10 leading new materials businesses with sales revenue of more than RMB 15 billion ($2.45 billion), with a secondary flight of another 20 companies with sales revenue of more than RMB 5 billion ($816 million).

ChinaDaily reported that target indus-tries include high-strength light alloys, high-performance steels, functional membranes,

new battery materials, carbon fiber compos-ites, and rare earth functional materials.

Automotive market moves into

the fast lane

China’s automobile production increased 10.18% in the most recent figures for July 2013, according to the China Assn. of Automobile Manufactur-ers (CAAM). Going back to the start of 2013, China automobile production totaled 10.968 million units, up 12.46% compared to the same period in 2012. Passenger car production lead the way and was up 9.62%, with commercial vehicle production up 12.78%.

Automotive applications top Chi-na’s demand for engineering plastics, accounting for 33% of consumption, followed by electrical/electronic (26%), and home appliances (19%), according to Business Forum China.

The market for engineering plastics, lead by automotive, grew by 15% annually from 2005 to 2010. Looking forward to 2015, annual growth of about 10% is forecast.

U.S. in the rear view

China’s automotive sector grew at a com-pound average rate of 24%/yr from 2005 to 2011, passing the U.S. in the fast lane as the largest single-country, new-car

BASF has been committed in Greater China since 1985. It is one of the biggest foreign investors in the

Chinese chemical industry. In order to supply the customers on site with optimal products and customized

solutions, BASF also set up Laboratories and Research Centers such as the technical Center in JinQiao

(Shanghai).

China’s per capita consumption of plastics was 22 kg in 2005. Just five years later, that figure had more than doubled, hitting 46 kg. The country’s emergence as a consumer of plastics, vs. primarily being an exporter of plastic-containing goods, will comprise the next chapter in its rise to plastics preeminence.


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China

78 nPe showCase 2013 PlastiCstoday.Com

market, according to the McKinsey study “Bigger, better, broader: A perspective on China’s auto market in 2020.”

McKinsey forecast that China’s mar-ket will “slow” to an average of 8%/yr growth between 2011 and 2020. By 2020, sales are forecast to hit 22 mil-lion, making China’s market bigger than Europe and North America.

Packaging rises in prominence

The Chinese packaging industry achieved an estimated value $76.0 billion in 2011, growing by 7.2% over the pre-vious year as the country overtook Japan in terms of market size. Next up, the U.S., which some forecast it will surpass by 2020. The China Packaging Federa-tion (CPF), pegged the total value of its industry in 2010 at RMB 1.2 trillion ($196 billion), also claiming that China was now the second largest packaging power behind the U.S.

In its China country report, the Asian Packaging Federation said that in 2011, China’s packaging industry grew to more than RMB 1.3 trillion, accounting for 2.8% of the country’s GDP, stating “The contribution of packaging indus-try to the economy and manufacturing industry is more and more obvious.”

In a letter to industry members, the CPF urged Chinese packaging compa-nies to attend trade fairs and invest in new technologies, saying, “China packag-ing enterprises need to buy international advanced equipment to ease increasing labor costs.”

Those companies seem to have got-ten the message. Demand for packag-ing machinery in China is forecast

to increase 7.5% annually to RMB 40 billion in 2016, according to The Freedonia Group. Filling and form/fill/seal equipment will remain the larg-est segment, with the fastest growth in labeling and coding products. Top end markets include medical, pharmaceuti-cal, and personal care. Freedonia pegs the entire Chinese market for packag-ing machinery at RMB 27.8 billion.

Freedonia also forecast that demand for beverage containers in China will climb 9.6% annually through 2015, reaching 469.5 billion units. Of that total, plastic beverage containers will make up nearly 223 billion units.

World’s largest medical market

“Growth opportunity” does not begin to describe the potential market impact of 1.3 billion people moving to universal healthcare access. That is what’s being proposed by the Chinese government, which has launched a health reform initiative that aims to give the most populous country in the world universal

healthcare access by 2020. Phase 1 of the program committed RMB 850 billion ($124 billion) to develop the country’s healthcare system, according to a report from Epsicom, while phase 2 adds an additional RMB 400 billion ($63.5 bil-lion) through 2020.

“The prospects for medical device spending is huge,” the Epsicom report states. “The government has committed heavily to the construction of thousands of hospitals, healthcare centers, and clinics, and this will inevitably lead to spending on capital goods, most notably medical devices, equipment and furniture at an unprecedented rate in a relatively short space of time.”

China’s medical device market is estimated at just under $17.1 billion in 2013, making it the fourth largest in the world and second largest in Asia behind Japan. Per capita spending in 2013 was estimated at just $12.60. From 2013-2018, Espicom believes market growth will average 20%/yr. Imports will also grow, and already have until local pro-duction can satiate domestic demand. Exports jumped 20.7% in 2012, hitting $10.329 billion.

North America may have been the largest consumer of medical polymers in 2011, using more 1800 kilo tons, but Asia Pacific, and in particular India and China, is expected to be the fastest grow-ing market in the future as companies shift manufacturing activities from west-ern countries.

Transparency Market Research pegged global medical polymer demand at 4391.0 kilo tons in 2011, forecasting that it would grow at a CAGR of 5.6%, reaching 6,411.7 kilo tons in 2018.

Disposable plastic medical devices face the prospect of exponential growth in China as the country moves

towards universal health care for its 1.3 billion citizens.

PC, like the Bayer Makrolon shown here, has been targeted as a key material by China’s leaders.


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ADDITIVES

ADEKA Corporation7-2-35 Higashi-ogu, Arakawa-ku Tokyo,Japan 116-8554Tel 81-3-4455-2847 Fax 81-3-3809-8244www.adeka.co.jp

ADEKA is a leading polymer additives manufacturer and has a wide variety of polymer additives. At the K 2013, ADEKA PALMAROLE SAS which is a subsidiary of ADEKA in France will have a stand and exhibit remarkable polymer additives. Nucleating agents/Clarifiers, Light stabiliz-ers, UV absorbers, Halogen free Flame Retardants, Speciality Antioxidants, PVC Stabilizers & Plasticizers

Hall 6 Stand A11

Technology and service for the produc-tion of biaxial-stretched films

ANDRITZ Biax supplies complete technol-ogy and service packages for the production of biaxial-stretched films. State-of-art tech-nology gets delivered to customers word-wide who rely on the financial strength, the high manufacturing quality and project management experience of the ANDRITZ GROUP. The product portfolio comprises product lines and turn-key plants for the production of all types of biaxial stretched films and wide range of special films.

battenfeld-cincinnati – leading solutions

Who we are:

• Leading global extrusion systems manu-

facturer (5 production sites on 3 conti-nents)

What we do:

• We manufacture extruders and complete

extrusion lines

• Our competence, experience and know-

how are pooled in 3 application-oriented Divisions: Infrastructure (all single screw applications pipe), Construction (all twin screw applications), Packaging (non-PVC film/sheet, pelletizing, calendering and lamination equipment)

What we offer:

• High-performance, energy-efficient equip-

ment meeting the latest technological standards

• Extensive global sales and service network

TESTING & INSPECTION SYSTEMS

Micro-Vu Corporation7909 Conde LaneWindsor, CA 95492 USA

PH +1(707)838-6272x243FX: +1(707)838-3985http://[email protected]

Micro-Vu is a world leader in dimensional inspection. Micro-Vu Corporation manu-factures automated and manual coordinate

measuring machines (CMMs) used for dimensional inspection and quality assur-ance and are designed for accuracy, speed, ease-of-use, and reliability.

Our systems include precision optics and programmable lighting with optional touch probe, laser, and rotary stage kits to expand measurement capabilities. Systems measure-ment parts from 1 millimeter to 2.5 meters and maintain micron accuracies. Our mul-tisensor systems, automated vision, manual vision, and optical comparators reduce inspection times and costs while increasing productivity.

Since 1959, Micro-Vu has shipped more than 35,000 Multisensor, Vision, Video, and Optical systems. Products are designed and manufactured in Windsor, California, USA.

All-Star Products2095 Exeter Rd Ste 80-324Memphis TN 38138Tel 800-431-8258Tel 901-755-9613Fax [email protected]://www.all-star-usa.com

For the past 16 years, All-Star has provided OEMs with products to meet todayÕs per-formance requirements and specifications. Our products are found in thousands of applications ranging from the environment to medical and yes, plastics. All-Star is the Òsupplier of choiceÓ for many of the larg-est manufacturers of plastic auxiliaries. We

are prepared to meet the most technically demanding application with a cost-effective and high performing solution.

Global Plastics Report 2013 Directory

Requests for information

on listing in future issues

should be sent to

Beth Berner,

PlasticsToday.com,

[email protected],

phone +1-440-209-1478


ad index


Advertiser PAge NumberAdvertiser PAge NumberAdvertiser PAge Number

Adeka Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43, 81

All Star Products Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

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Battenfeld-Cincinnati . . . . . . . . . . . . .81

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Budzar Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

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DME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Eckart Gmbh & Co. Kg . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Engel North America . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Equate Petrochemical Company. . . . .27

Gneuss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Heritage Plastics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Hosokawa Alpine AG . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

IHS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

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Micro-Vu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

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Plastics Color Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Plastrac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Poco Graphite, An Entegris

Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Polymer Alliance Zone Inc. . . . . . . . .71

Polyplastics Co Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

Riteway Machining Inc. . . . . . . . . . . .61

Sigma Plastic Services Inc. . . . . . . . . .25

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag . . . . . . . . . .21

Synventive Molding Solutions . . . . . .23

The Conair Group Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Thermo Fisher Scientific. . . . . . . . . . .13

Tinius Olsen Testing

Machine Co. Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Unitherm Insulation

Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, Insert

Wonil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57



http://www.polyplastics.com/en

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