Plastics business equipment

In the 1960s Air Products began to diversify through acquisitions, purchasing Catalytic Construction Company, a specialized engineering firm focused on gas processing. It moved into chemicals in 1962 with the purchase of Houdry Chemicals and two other small specialty chemicals companies. Then in 1971 it purchased the chemicals and plastics business unit of Air Reduction Company (Airco), a smaller rival. At the same time it acquired a small medical equipment enterprise. 

Noryl . [GE Plastics GE Plastics Ltd.] Modified polyphenylene oxide resins engineering resin for inj. mcdding, ex> trasitm, structural foam used for computers, business equip., automotive, elec., electronics, construction, telecommunications, tqppliances, and other industries. 

In most situations, the manual identification and sorting of plastics parts from automobiles or computer and business equipment housings using fast infi ared techniques has significant throughput limitations. Overall ID and sorting rates of... 

Air classification is indispensable in a plastics recycling operation that takes in complex plastic-rich parts from end-of-life durables such as automobiles, computers, televisions, business equipment, and small household appliances [8, 10, 49, 73]. Air classification process steps can also be staged to drop out various materials depending on particle size, shape, and buoyancy. Some advantages and disadvantages of air classification processing are shown next ... 

IBM has been coding plastic components to promote their recyclability since 1992, when it became the first computer manufacturer to do so. Computer and business equipment companies are also increasing their use of recycled-content resins in production. For example, Kobe Steel Ltd., announced in 1998 that it had developed a practical sandwich technique for applying virgin resin to a core of recovered plastic, which allows increased use of recycled resin. They plan to market the technology to manufacturers of office machines, home electronics, and toiletries. The Japanese unit of IBM is manufacturing some personal computers with about 20% recycled plastic from older IBM PCs. ... 

Fiberglas/Plastic Design Guide for Business Equipment and Appliance Manufacturers, Owens/Corning Fiberglas, Fiberglas Tower, Toledo, OH, December 1974. 

The chemical industry represents a 455-billion-dollar-a-year business, with products ranging from cosmetics, to fuel products, to plastics, to pharmaceuticals, health care products, food additives, and many others. It is diverse and dynamic, with market sectors rapidly expanding, and in turmoil in many parts of the world. Across these varied industry sectors, basic unit operations and equipment are applied on a daily basis, and indeed although there have been major technological innovations to processes, many pieces of equipment are based upon a foundation of engineering principles developed more than 50 years ago. 

Figure 1.1 shows that the methods of manufacturing (semi-)finished plastic parts involve various players equipment manufacturers, polymer producers, additive suppliers, compounders and final processors. It can be safely assumed that the compounder will continue to be the main customer for additives and additive concentrates also in the future. Finally, the recently established Plastics Additive Museum (Lingen, Bavaria), by a pioneer in PVC additives (Barlocher GmbH), shows that the business is coming to age. 

A monthly pubhcation of McGraw-Hill. It is oriented to marketing, business, and production. Annually it issues the Modern Plastics Encyclopedia. This gives a list of chemical suppliers, equipment manufacturers, polymer properties, equipment descriptions, and machinery selector charts. 

A monthly pubhcation of Rogers Publishing Company. This business-oriented publication gives production statistics. Annually it publishes a list of companies providing chemicals, services, and equipment to the plastics industry, and gives the production capacity by compound for each company. 

Plastics for the engineering applications we have just discussed will find some use in practically any industry you can name. You have all seen such lists in the trade literature but, again, for a general background here are a few such user areas aerospace and military, appliances, business machines and other electrical-electronics equip-... 

In our illustrative case, identification of these users should present no problem. We have an established pattern of use to start with. Typical uses of engineering plastics will be located in such industries as automotive, aircraft, appliances, business machines, communication equipment, aerospace, and defense industries. Our sales department can help guide us to the right companies in these fields. We should include also so-called secondary accounts — our customer s customers. 

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