Modified Plastics—Regional Compounding

Sometimes a niche market can be successfully defended against bigger, wealthier companies for an indefinite period of time. Modified Plastics in Anaheim, California, is good example. The relative geographic and time zone isolation of the American West Coast from the rest of the country makes it difficult to compete from outside the region against a skillful local firm. 

Former LNP employees founded Modified Plastics in 1976 as a toll compounder, which has since expanded a full range of custom compounds. In 1990, Modified expanded by adding a color match and master batch business. Color Science. In 2008, a third company was added. Plastics Analytical Laboratory, to provide customers with testing and certifications. The combined companies—they are co-located—have grown steadily over the years, offering a full range of compounded products, and have become the largest West Coast compounder. Modified has further 

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Styrenic block copolymers and their compounds have been in widespread commercial use for many years, with many applications. With the latest technology, they have become particularly interesting as impact modifiers for plastics, both thermoplastics and thermosets. Most polymers are thermodynamically incompatible with others polymers and mixtures tend to separate into two phases, even when they are part of the same molecule, as in block copolymers. Poly(styrene-P-elastomer-P-styrene) copolymers, in which the elastomer is the main constituent, give a structure in which the polystyrene end-segments form separate spherical regions ( domains ) dispersed in a continuous phase. 

At about 1951, both Wilbur Kaye at Tennessee Eastman and Harry Willis in the Plastics Division of ICI in the U.K. began exploring NIR. Wilbur Kaye modified a Beckman DU UV instrument and worked on the development of the Beckman DK for NIR. Kaye thoroughly discussed the spectra of several compounds, including hromoform, chloroform, methylene chloride, benzene, methanol, and m-toluidine. He cited potential application of the spectral region to the analysis of mixtures of organic compounds, including water in hydrocarbons and other solvents, alcohols in hydrocarbons, acids, amines, benzene, and olefins in hydrocarbons. 

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