SPE-Antec, the Society of Plastics Engineers' annual conference, drew 2,063 visitors, including exhibitors, to the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, N.C. Senior reporter Bill Bregar gathered these news briefs at the conference, held May 7-11.
List Group celebrates its 40th anniversary
List Group of Arisdorf, Switzerland, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The company was founded in 1966 by Heinz List, a pioneer of modern industrial processing equipment.
Heinz List developed the Ko-Kneader and licensed it to Buss AG and Baker Perkins. The technology found widespread use for PVC compounding, wire and coating operations and powder coating. He started working at Buss in 1945.
When List started his own company, he recognized the limitation of the Ko-Kneader principle: A small working volume for continuous operation resulted in short retention times and a relatively small heat-exchange surface.
He developed a new concept, using large heat-exchange surfaces, large volumes for longer residence times, plug-flow material transport, self cleaning and other features.
Today the company offers its mixing/kneading technology customized with single- or double-shaft machines, for devolatizing and polymerization. List Group holds more than 100 patents.
Charlotte-based List USA Inc. exhibited at SPE-Antec, where the company introduced a laboratory system. It uses a twin-shaft batch processor.
List officials also delivered two technical papers: ``Torque and Speed Fluctuation on Polymer Processing in a Large-Volume Kneader'' and ``Bulk Polymerization of Methyl Methacrylate in a Kneader Reactor.''
Basell boasts online PP price tracking
Basell U.S.A. Inc. highlighted its Alastian Web-based polypropylene sales channel at its SPE-Antec booth.
Customers can log into www.alastian.com to see the current purchase price, select volumes and schedule delivery before ordering. Users can sort by grade name of PP, product family or melt-flow rate.
Basell U.S.A. is based in Elkton, Md.