Plastic-packaging technology, development

Biotec s product portfolio includes thermoplastic starch, which can be substituted for petrochemical based plastic packaging. Stanelco s radio frequency sealing technology can be used to process starch polymers without the degradation caused by other methods such as thermal processing. The purchase of Biotec will help the company develop alternatives to petroleum-based packaging. 

What is important to realize is that the plastics recycling technologies that have developed over the past decade do not require the piece-by-piece manual sorting of plastic packages and products by type of resin. This can be done using automated equipment if the plastics recycling plant is appropriately designed. 

Figure 3.7 shows the variety of surface-mount plastic packages that have been developed based on PQFP technology. 

A number of factors have enabled the economies in cost possible with the use of plastic packaged devices to be realised. The development of new grades with freedom from the ionisable impurities that could result in corrosion problems when transported to the chip surface by water permeation, the incorporation of corrosion inhibitors, the careful selection of plastic material (to avoid thermal expansion mismatches with resulting stresses on the chips) and the reduction in life expectancy of current equipment due to the rapid rate of development and outdaring of equipment associated with the new silicon technology has now resulted in plastic encapsulated devices dominating the component field. 

Degradable plastics can be manufactured by a variety of processes [10]. An early approach to the problem was to add oxidation accelerators such as ben-zophenone to make unstable plastics. As the technology developed, more sophisticated systems were devised since packaging materials must not only degrade, but must do so at a controlled and predictable rate. A number of these systems have also been described. 

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