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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 PEPSICO SPEEDS BOTTLE DESIGN WITH 3D PRINTING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BOOSTS ACCURACY OF RECYCLING LINES Deep-learning algorithms enhance machine sortation PLUSINSIDE PLASTICS ENGINEERING VOLUME 78 NUMBER 10 NOV/DEC 2022 24 AI UPS RECYCLING PAYOFF Sortation equipment driven by machine learning generates high-quality recycled plastics. 10 GET YOUR OWN! Plastics Engineering keeps plastics industry professionals informed of the latest news and in-depth reporting on state-of-the-art and emerging technologies that impact the R&D and processing of plastics products. This is the magazine every plastics industry professional NEEDS to read. 4spe.org/Subscribe 4 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR BRILLIANT IDEA 3D-printed tooling slashes PET soda bottle development time and cost for PepsiCo. COVER STORY 2022 Folio Eddie Award Winner for Single Article in the Non-profit Professional Membership Association category. Honorable Mention in the same category for Range of Work by a Single Author. 2022 TRENDY Award for Most Improved Magazine. www.plasticsengineering.org | NOV/DEC 2022 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | 144 | New Product News 5 | Set Point Printing aerospace composites; SHI Sells 80,000th IntElect Press 47 | Calendar 48 | Ad/Editorial Index INSIDE PLASTICS ENGINEERING VOLUME 78 NUMBER 10 NOV/DEC 2022 35 | Expanding Process Skills Two-day training session by AIM and Plustech broadens machine operators’ injection molding knowledge. 20 9 | The Legal Angle FTC ‘Green Guides’ are real and a legal standard for product claims CONCEIVED AND CREATED SPE Automotive Innovation Awards demonstrate how polymeric materials power evolving vehicle designs. 18 ELECTRIC EVERYTHING SPE Automotive Composites Conference chronicles revolutionary shift from internal combustion engines to electric motors. DATA ENHANCEMENTS BOOST PRODUCTIVITY Developers say there’s no IOU for ROI with Industry 4.0 connectivity and digitalization systems. 14 PVC IS SUSTAINABLE VinylTec presenters nevertheless highlighted the need to prove—and improve—sustainability data. 32 CLEVER DESIGNS MAKE GREAT IDEAS Sustainability and accessibility are highlights of IDSA’s 2022 award winners. 28 38 | Problem-Solving Plastics With unique functionalities, smart plastics are taking polymers into new applications. 40 | Case Study New technology and hardware simplify analysis for materials producer Chemours. 2 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | NOV/DEC 2022 | www.plasticsengineering.orgPatrick Toensmeier Editor-in-Chief (203) 777-1474 ptoensmeier@4spe.org Michael Greskiewicz Director, Sales & Advertising (203) 740-5411 mgreskiewicz@4spe.org Ryan Foster Art Director (203) 740-5410 rfoster@4spe.org Sue Wojnicki Director of Communications (203) 740-5420 swojnicki@4spe.org Editorial & Publishing Staff President Jason Lyons CEO Patrick Farrey President-Elect Bruce Mulholland Vice President – Chapters & Secretary ScottEastman Vice President – Business & Finance / Treasurer James Waddell Vice President – Professional Development Pavan Valavala Vice President – Sustainability Conor Carlin Vice President – Member Engagement Lynzie Nebel Vice President – Publications Raymond Pearson Vice President at Large Paul Martin Past President Jaime Gómez SPE 2021-2022 Executive Board Contributing Editors NANCY D. LAMONTAGNE ndlamontagne@gmail.com Nancy D. Lamontagne reports on science, technology and engineering. Topics she covers for Plastics Engineering include thermoforming, blow molding, medical plastics, packaging, and education and career development. ROBERT GRACE bob@rcgrace.com Robert Grace has been in B2B journalism since 1980. He covers design and business for Plastics Engineering and is editor of SPE’s Journal of Blow Molding. Professional memberships include the Industrial Designers Society of America. JENNIFER MARKARIAN technicalwritingsolutions@comcast.net Jennifer Markarian has been reporting on the plastics industry for more than 20 years, covering a range of technology topics. She is also the newsletter editor for SPE’s Palisades-MidAtlantic Chapter. CATHY NESTRICK Cathy Nestrick is the former vice president and general counsel of Berry Global Group Inc., a Fortune 500 manufacturer and marketer of plastics packaging and engineered materials. She is the founder and co-host of Parity Podcast, which focuses on accelerating gender equality. ERIC F. GREENBERG Eric Greenberg focuses on food and drug law, packaging law and commercial litigation. Work includes regulatory counseling, label and claims review, product development, GRAS, food contact materials evaluations and clearances, and related areas. www.plasticsengineering.org | NOV/DEC 2022 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | 3 PEGGY MALNATI peggy@malnatiandassociates.com Peggy Malnati has over 30 years’ experience covering plastics, composites and automotive. She has organized technical conferences for SPE and served as board member and communications chair for SPE’s Automotive Division. GEOFF GIORDANO geoffgio@verizon.net Geoff Giordano has been a contributor to Plastics Engineering since 2009, covering a range of topics, including additives, infrastructure, flexible electronics, design software, 3D printing and nanotechnology. FROM THE T he American novelist Ring Lardner wrote a satirical novella in 1920 titled The Young Immigrunts, in which a father, who gets lost driving from New York City to Greenwich, Conn., with his family on the final leg of a cross-country trip, barks a memorable command to his young son in response to a predictable question: “Are you lost, Daddy?” “Shut up,” he explained. That comment, simple, elegant and immutable, was a literary tour de force for Lardner. It lives on as an unmistakable sign of frustration for those who tire of hearing time-worn refrains over and over. I thought of the comment when reading the latest report from Greenpeace USA, which states that plastics are not recyclable, single-use packaging generates “trillions of pieces of plastic confetti” annually, commingled plastics cannot be recycled and plastics recycling is, in all cases, “wasteful, polluting and a fire hazard,” as well as uneconomical. This is pretty much what Greenpeace has said for years. The report, in fact, is titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again: 2022 Update.” As the title implies, there’s little in it that is new or insightful as regards plastics and recycling, no bold thinking much less viable recommendations as to how plastics can improve its place within the circular economy, or recognition of the ways in which plastics contribute to quality of life. Greenpeace breaks up the 18-page report with photos highlighting the litter and pollution unregulated plastics disposal creates in urban areas, on beaches and in waterways. Most photos lack descriptions of where they were taken or reasons behind the conditions they represent. As such, they portray plastics viscerally as pollution hazards with no consideration of how areas get befouled by waste. The plastics industry, of course, has acknowledged for some time that the U.S. and other developed countries have recycling problems, notably in collection, effective reclaim and reuse. Greenpeace’s update, however, is focused on the negative image of plastics—mostly in packaging and single-use bottles—rather than the legitimate efforts underway by industry, academia, brand owners and even regulators to improve the handling and reuse of waste. So colossal a problem are plastics for Greenpeace that the report quotes a resin supplier who likened the commercialization of chemical recycling to “going to Mars.” Greenpeace is entitled to its opinion about plastics. But its “update” would be more credible if it also examined the benefits of new and evolving technologies that proponents believe will improve the collection, sortation, recycling and reuse of plastics. Think chemical (or advanced) recycling; the use of more powerful sensor technology and artificial intelligence to improve mechanical recycling of commingled polymers; and developments in monomaterials that deliver effective barrier protection without the need for multiple layers of different resins. Greenpeace says companies must take immediate action to eliminate single-use plastics and packaging and not “rely on false [recycling] solutions such as content and material substitution.” Reuse and refill systems “need to be rapidly scaled up and invested in by the world’s biggest plastic polluters.” There’s no real discussion in the report of how reuse and refill systems would work in the market. Or if single-use packaging is the only plastics application that Greenpeace—and other groups— will target. The report concludes by noting: “[I]t is time to accept that plastic recycling is a failed concept. Unlike with paper or metals, there are two insurmountable barriers that prevent plastic recycling from … working at scale: toxicity and economics. Plastic cannot be safely recycled from post-consumer household waste … into new food- grade … products. The flood of 400 million tons/year of cheap new plastic production kills the business case for large-scale investment in … recycling. And the problem lies not with the concept or process of recycling but with the … material itself—it is plastic recycling that does not work.” This is nonsense. Companies are investing billions in developing or upgrading recycling technologies and the momentum behind these projects is not slowing. This should be as much of a consideration for Greenpeace as minimizing an industry that produces one of the most versatile and successful materials in history. PAT TOENSMEIER Editor-in-Chief ptoensmeier@4spe.org GREENPEACE: NO POINT IN RECYCLING 4 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | NOV/DEC 2022 | www.plasticsengineering.orgSET POINT ASCEND BUYS MAJORITY STAKE IN CALIFORNIA CARPET RECYCLER Ascend Performance Materials, which launched its ReDefyne portfolio of sustainable polyamides at K 2022, has taken a major step toward securing a steady supply of high-quality recycled material by acquiring a majority stake in Circular Polymers LLC. Founded in 2017 by CEO David Bender, Circular Polymers, of Lincoln, Calif., produces nylon 66, nylon 6, polyester (PET) and polypropylene from post-consumer carpet. The firm has exclusive North American rights to the technology of Broadview Group International LLC. BGI’s rotary impact separator technology efficiently separates shredded, post-consumer carpet into the face fiber, backing and calcium carbonate. we’re … doing is deconstructing the carpet,” Bender said in a Nov. 7 phone interview. “It’s that deconstruction of the material that creates such a consistent, high-quality feedstock across all polymers” that the firm processes. That appealed to Ascend, said Phil McDivitt, president and CEO, in the same interview. “That gave us a great starting point for how we can leverage those streams into what is now our ReDefyne product line.” He said his firm has worked with Circular Polymers for more than a year and used that experience to hone a strategy for its recycled portfolio. Circular Polymers claims it has redirected some 85 million pounds of waste from landfills into new goods since 2018. McDivittuses the term “re-life” to describe what Circular does in diverting waste carpet from the trash heap. “Basically, what you are doing is taking something that is about to be buried and giving it a new life.” Bender will remain as CEO of the company and retain a minority ownership stake in the firm. Now renamed Circular Polymers by Ascend, the company produces high-quality materials that offer strong performance but “with a considerably smaller environmental footprint, compared to other technologies like pyrolysis,” said McDivitt. “Since we launched ReDefyne, the demand for our circular products has been significant across all segments of our business, including automotive, consumer, electronics, and high-performance fibers and textiles.” Houston-based Ascend, an integrated producer of nylon and other durable materials, created ReDefyne products from up to 100 percent pre- and post-consumer recycled nylon 66 or 6 to provide a low carbon footprint and reliable performance. Ascend is additionally partnering with ITW Global Fasteners to pilot low-carbon ReDefyne with traceable blockchain technology certified by PlasticFinder. Plastic Finder’s Certified Circular Plastic program (www.certifiedcircularplastic.com) “tracks and verifies every batch of material with a unique identification code describing the entire cycle.” Using ReDefyne nylon, “ITW is producing fasteners with a considerably lower carbon footprint,” said Christelle Staller, Ascend’s sales director for EMEAI (Europe, Middle East, Africa and India). “ITW and Ascend believe that sustainability requires accountability and are excited to pilot Certified Circular Plastic’s traceability program.” Meantime, Ascend plans to work with some of its portfolio sister companies (which are also owned by SK Capital Partners)—particularly compounders Geon and Techmer PM—to find good homes for its recycled PET and PP materials. McDivittstressed that this deal with Circular Polymers “is not a transactional relationship. This is much bigger and much more structural. This is a commitment that says we’re going to be in this for the long term. We like the BGI technology, and we like the guy running Circular Polymers, and we didn’t want this to be an arm’s-length synergy. We wanted Circular to be part of the family.” Ascend has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2030 and recently announced two efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of its products. The company’s global compounding operations are now carbon neutral. Ascend said it is the first integrated polyamide producer to decarbonize a substantial part of its operations, and it has secured ISCC+ certification for the use of bio- based materials. Bender noted that “Amazon folks talk about ‘the last mile.’ In our business, it’s all about ‘the first mile.’ It’s about raw material collection. ... We’re trying to educate not just the consumers, but the retailers and the landfills, as well, so we can get as much raw material as possible to support ReDefyne and other applications. Currently, he added, the industry recycles only about 30 percent of the carpet in California, so there is much opportunity in that state alone, not to mention … across the country and beyond. “100 percent of the material we produce will have a home,” McDivittsaid. “At the moment, customer demand outstrips supply. In addition to mapping out a five-year investment plan for Circular Polymers, he added, “We started looking at additional capacity investment inside the Lincoln plant” before the deal was done. Bender says Circular has the ability to grow “significantly” within the California facility, but that the firm currently is focused on securing the raw materials needed to enable that growth. David Bender Phil McDivitt www.plasticsengineering.org | NOV/DEC 2022 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | 5SET POINT Composite fabrication is a no-brainer when it comes to designing structural parts. Fiber- reinforced materials, whether thermoset or thermoplastic, provide such properties as strength, weight savings, part consolidation and environmental benefits in numerous parts. The only apparent tradeoffs are relatively slow process times and material waste in the form of scrap. This might be changing. Purdue University is working with 9T Labs AG, an additive manufacturing (AM) technology developer based in Zürich, to research and test the potential of manufacturing structural aerospace composite applications at scale with 9T’s Additive Fusion Technology (AFT), a 3D printing process. The partnership is a first-of-its-kind collaboration for 9T Labs in the U.S. The innovative hybrid part solution, which combines high-resolution AM with the speed of bulk molding compound (BMC) overmolding to automate manufacturing, is intended to offer a cost-competitive option versus the conventional production of aluminum aerospace parts. 9T Labs’ approach to continuous- fiber 3D-printed preform parts has already shown promise in transportation, medical and robotics industries, among others. Purdue’s world-class Composite Manufacturing and Simulation Center (CMSC) in West Lafayette, Ind., provides the tools and resources to analyze, simulate and test the performance of composites. 9T Labs and Purdue worked collaboratively to develop the application workflow to efficiently engineer and manufacture high-performance parts using BMC chips and continuous-fiber 3D-printed preforms. Initial tests show that customized continuous-fiber hybrid parts can be digitally designed, 3D printed and co-molded with BMC materials, ensuring performance at only a fraction of the usual cost of continuous- fiber composite materials. “Traditional composite manufacturing is expensive, wasteful and limited in its geometric freedom, particularly for small-sized applications,” says Yannick Willemin, head of marketing and business development at 9T Labs. “We are defining a new composite manufacturing standard that allows us to produce structural composite parts as easily as metal parts. Our partnership with Purdue is a meaningful step toward making this technology more broadly available and accessible within the next 12 to 18 months.” The origins of the partnership go back to when Martin Eichenhofer, 9T Labs’ CEO and co-founder, learned during his PhD studies of the work done by Dr. R. Byron Pipes of Purdue on composites. “When I heard about the new Composite Manufacturing and Simulation Center led by Dr. Pipes, I reached out to him to discuss what we were doing at 9T Labs,” says Eichenhofer. “His curiosity was piqued, and we discovered an opportunity to work together on advanced thermoplastic composites.” Pipes said: “We’ve chosen to collaborate with 9T Labs because we believe that their development of AFT and novel hybrid approach is the future of the composite manufacturing industry.” Beyond the practical applications and potential that the AFT hybrid solution brings to multiple important industries, there are strong economic and sustainability benefits to using the technology. The combination of zero-waste approach, the possibility to recycle thermoplastics and the positive impact on part performance being at least 50 percent lighter than the metal benchmarks make AFT a very attractive standard of manufacturing. According to Dr. Eduardo Barocio, assistant director for additive manufacturing at Purdue, “This technology we are developing with 9T labs for molding BMC material systems with a relatively small fraction of continuous-fiber printed preforms offers significant potential to enhance the strength performance of molded components without compromising ASIAN STUDENTS PROPOSE ANTI-POLLUTION PROGRAMS The Commitments Accelerator for Plastic Pollution (CAPP) has announced the winners of its first “Make the Case” competition across East Asia, which challenged students to identify plastics pollution programs that are working and suggest ways to scale the programs more broadly. CAPP (www.capp. global), an initiative of the Hong Kong- based Ocean Recovery Alliance (ORA), in early 2021 concluded its first two such programs, both focused on India, and their success led to the recent, broader competition across all of East Asia, according to Rob Steir, an environmental entrepreneur based in Delray Beach, Fla. Steir is driving the competition, along with Doug Woodring, an American based in Hong Kong who is founder and managing director of ORA, a nonprofit, non-govern- mental organization dedicated to helping save the planet’s ocean and water- ways (September 2021 Plastics Engi- neering, p. 36). For this latest contest, teams representing 22 universities in 10 countries participated by writing detailed case studies on initiatives that significantly reduce plastics waste where they operate and could be scaled to another location. The 10 finalists then needed to present their findings to a jury. The teams competed for prize money totaling HK$128,700 (about U.S.$16,500). The competition was divided into two themes: 1) Find a proven project in a city, town or village that does an effective job of reducing the amount of plastics waste 3D-printed composite overhead compartment pin for aircraft is one of the thermoplastic composite test parts produced by Purdue and 9T Labs. Courtesy of 9T Labs PURDUE AND 9T LABS COLLABORATE ON PRINTED AEROSPACE COMPOSITES continued on p. 8continued on p. 8 Doug Woodring Rob Steir 6 | PLASTICS ENGINEERING | NOV/DEC 2022 | www.plasticsengineering.orgTHE JOURNEY BEGINS WITH KYDEX® THERMOPLASTICS kydex.com CUSTOMIZATION CREATED THROUGH INNOVATION ® Next >