PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2010

NEWS 12 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 10/10 www.petpla.net Barrier resin obtains egulatory clearance for USA and Europe Invista, part of Kansas, USA-based Koch Industries, Inc, has obtained regulatory clearance for its OxyClear barrier resin for food and beverage packaging under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the European Union Packaging Directive for certain food types and process- ing conditions. Containers made with the newly-authorised barrier resin are completely clear but provide full shelf-life protection for oxygen-sensitive foods and beverages, such as fortified water, juice, wine, beer and dairy, as well as ketchup, sauces and other condiments. Invista says that both colourless and tinted containers made from OxyClear barrier resin are as clear as containers made from stand- ard PET. The product is a two-component barrier system in which up to 3% of OxyClear resin, an oxidisable co-polyes- ter, is added at the injection machine to PolyShield resin, the established barrier resin used in beer packaging. The oxygen barrier is activated when OxyClear resin additive is added to the injection machine. The additive is a high capac- ity, polyester-based oxygen absorber. It contains no nylon or nitrogen and Invista says that it exhibits significantly reduced yellowing during the recycling process, compared to other commercial oxygen scavengers. The company is in the proc- ess of reviewing recognition guidelines from the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR) and/or the Euro- pean Plastic Bottle Platform (EPBP). www.invista.com Drink Technology India 2010 – seeds in fertile soil The Bombay Exhibition Centre will be simultaneously hosting drink technology India 2010 (dti) and International PackTech India, the International Exhibition and Confer- ence for the Packaging and Processing Industry, from 18-20 November 18-20 this year. dti, India’s International Trade Fair for Beverage and Liquid Food Technology, attracts manufacturers of beverages of all kinds and pro- ducers of liquid food from across India and neighbouring regions. The 2010 edition is, for the first time, organised as a joint event with International PackTech India, with a shared exhibitor forum. The organiser of dti is Messe München GmbH; International PackTech India is the responsibility of Messe Düsseldorf GmbH. The joint event provides a single large trading platform for customers from the packaging industry and from the beverage and liquid-food industry. India’s economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world. Some sectors of the beverage are predicted to see double-digit growth in coming years. Over the last five years, India’s imports of food processing and packaging machinery increased by 200% (2008: US$200 million). CSD has attracted foreign direct investments amounting to around $1049 million. The bottled water market has been estimated at $570 million (2008), with annual growth of 14.5%. Beer sales amounted to 1074 million litres in 2008. www.drinktechnology-india.com www.vdma.org www.messe-munchen.de New Sales Manager at MHT Volker Jährling has been appointed to succeed Rolf Steinmetz as manager of worldwide sales for MHT Mold / Hotrun- ner Technology AG in Hochheim/Main, Germany. Mr Jährling is a qualified engi- neer, specialising in plastics technology and has been involved the service and distribution of plastics processing machin- ery and fittings for over 30 years. He has been involved with support for customers in the packaging industry and was responsible for joint projects with MHT. www.mht-ag.de New Managing Director/Partner at CCT GmbH CCT GmbH has announced that 45-yr-old Rolf Steinmetz been appointed Managing Director/Partner, with effect from September 1, 2010. He now heads the Niedernhausen/ Hessen , germany,company together with the long-term Managing Director/ Partner, Dipl. Ing. Alexander Schmitz. The core competency of CCT GmbH is the development of closure technolo- gies such as ComPETCap, MC29-01, 1881 and various patents as well as the projecting of turnkey projects for the beverages industry. www.cct-gmbh.com Plasma technology in plastics processing German research teams from RWTH Aachen Univer- sity, Ruhr University, Bochum (RUB), and the University of Paderborn are collaborating in the examination of fundamen- tal issues regarding the development of plasma-assisted processes for the deposition of functional layers. The German Research Foundation (DFG) has been sponsoring the trans-regional collaborative research centre (SFB/TRR 87) for plasma technology since July 1, 2010. A total of nine research institutes are participating in this joint project, offi- cially titled ‘Pulsed high-power plasmas for the synthesis of nano-structured functional layers’. The SFB, initially financed for four years, is divided into three research areas: coating systems on metal substrates for tribological applications (project area A); new functional coatings to improve the barrier performance of plastic substrates (project area B). Project C will undertake sup- port studies on elementary principles of plasma processes (project area C). The Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV) at RWTH Aachen University will perform research in two subprojects of project area B: the large-scale deposition of strain-tolerant barrier coatings on PET films and, based on the example of PP, the influence of material properties – e.g. orientations and internal stresses – on the plasma process. They will study the influence and the potential of high-per- formance plasmas, starting with the atom in the gaseous phase to the performance characteristics of new, theoretically conceived material systems. www.ikv-aachen.de