Press maker Arburg opens Calif. center
IRVINE, CALIF. - German injection press manufacturer Arburg GmbH + Co. KG has opened a newly built technology center in Irvine. About 130 people attended the late February ceremony and open house.
The operation moved 18 miles from a smaller location it had occupied in Huntington Beach since 2003. Previously, Arburg had a West Coast technology center in Westminster, Calif., for 20 years.
Arburg managing partner Michael Hehl said the firm's construction of the 5,500-square-foot center reflects the importance of the North American market to the business. He and his sister, Juliane Hehl, who also attended, are Arburg managing partners.
Other Arburg executives in attendance included Friedrich Kanz, president of the company's Arburg Inc. unit, and Helmut Heinson, managing director of sales. Bill Carteaux, president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., also gave a presentation and helped to open the facility.
The center, like all Arburg buildings worldwide, has a glass fa‡ade, which Michael Hehl called ``the most noticeable feature of our corporate identity.''
Activities at the open house included three technical presentations, live demonstrations in a room suitable to accommodate six injection molding machines and facility tours, including a 16-person training room that can host courses for customers.
In the technology demonstrations, Arburg used a 32-cavity hot-runner mold in making a polypropylene screw-on cap on a 330-ton press. It also ran an in-mold labeling application with a 2.7-second cycle and insert molded a PP toy car on a 28-ton vertical press.
Lossburg, Germany-based Arburg employs more than 2,000.
DuPont to acquire Cardinal garment line
WILMINGTON, DEL. - DuPont Co. will purchase Cardinal Health Inc.'s industrial garment line, including the Micro-Clean brand, which is made from DuPont's Tyvek spun-bonded polyolefin material.
The line of apparel is used in clean rooms and other controlled environments, including the manufacturing of health-care products and electronics.
Terms were not disclosed.
The Wilmington-based DuPont already is a leading manufacturer of fabrics and garments for industrial safety and emergency response. This acquisition will help DuPont expand into a broader product offering, including disposable garments and accessories.
Cardinal Health, of Dublin, Ohio, will retain its hospital apparel product line, along with its line of industrial gloves.
Scrap nylon is found by Canadian recycler
EDMONTON, ALBERTA - Plastics recycler Poly-Pacific International Inc. reported it found scrap nylon at the McAdoo Landfill site in Kingston, Ontario.
Boreholes in the site indicated nylon close to the surface extending to depths of 33 feet. The results exceeded the firm's expectations, Poly-Pacific said in a March 19 news release.
The landfill contains scrap nylon fiber that Poly-Pacific hopes to recover, clean up and sell. Tests showed samples in the landfill were of nylon 6/6, the most common grade. Poly-Pacific has plans to find and recover scrap nylon and other polymers throughout North America.
In addition to supplying recycled nylon, the Edmonton firm makes a polymer-based medium used like sandblasting to remove paints and coatings from sensitive substrates.
Firms joining forces for printing systems
ROLLING MEADOWS, ILL. - Spartanics Ltd. and Systec GmbH have announced a partnership to provide custom-engineered screen-printing systems.
Spartanics, based in Rolling Meadows, makes equipment for laser cutting, die cutting, plastic card manufacturing and screen printing.
Systec GmbH of Bielefeld, Germany, was established in 2007 as a screen-printing manufacturing firm from what had been a technical service company.
Both companies' strong emphasis on engineering, and screen-printing knowledge, makes for a strong partnership, said Spartanics President Tom O'Hara.
The systems are built upon the Klemm screen-printing press design. Spartanics acquired rights to the technology two years ago.
American Packaging gives $1M for center
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - American Packaging Corp., a flexible packaging converter in Rochester, has donated $1 million to Rochester Institute of Technology to expand the university's Center for Integrated Plastics. The renamed American Packaging Center for Plastics and Packaging is being relocated into the campus' new engineering technology building.
The money will help equip the center and establish a position of director and graduate assistant.