Page 33 - Plastics News June 2023

FEATURE

emptying technology, can make a tre- effective at removing residue from is particularly attractive to producers.
mendous difference by facilitating the the hard-to-reach dead spots, such It’s ideal for a wide range of resins and
quick and complete removal of dark back o flig o screw, works well for extrusion and blow
colors and carbon from parts. The mak the sc so difficu to molding machines with and without
self-emptying technology is also ideal clean completely. Ultra Purge™ 3615 accumulators, which can be extreme-
for machine shutdowns. The equip- works with such quickness and ease ly difficult to purge. Ultra Purge™
ment will be free of resin residue af- that the result is up to a 75% reduc- 3615 is a chemical purging compound
ter using a self-emptying purge com- tion in downtime and scrap for color that typically requires less product to
pound, resulting in no carbon specks changes, shutdowns/start-ups, and be effective and is less abrasive on
contaminating parts on start-up. carbon removal. equipment.
One standout product that utilizes Versatility makes the difference
self-emptying technology is Chem- The versatility of Ultra Purge™ 3615
Trend Ultra Purge™ 3615. Especially

The Complexities of Plastic-to-Plastic Welding, and How to Overcome Them

cites one example involving plastic-to-
plastic joining.

The three circles illustrate the meth-
odology used by EWI in consultation
with its customers.
Problem solving of this nature is all in
a day’s work at EWI. “We have a great
polymers team that gets together and
considers the various options,” said
Ellis. “What materials and processes
can we use? We come up with a table
showing that this material will work
eff Ellis of EWI engineering con- PlasticsToday. The solution, he added, for this process but not for that one.
Jsultancy knows a thing or two is to take into account the design, ma- Or we have another material that can
about joining plastics, because terials, and processing in parallel at work with two different processes to
he’s seen a thing or two. the start of a project. make the shape you want. We apply
our experience and expertise from
So, you’ve got your product design Joining plastics? It's complicated
pretty much down and selected the EWI is an engineering consultancy having worked on many of these pro-
materials with the properties the ap- that is dedicated to helping custom- jects in the past to find the best solu-
plication requires, but some of the ers overcome complex manufactur- tion for that particular product,” said
plastic parts need to be joined. You ing challenges. One of its areas of ex- Ellis.
may discover that the joining tech- pertise is welding and joining various Medical adds yet another layer of
nology you were considering won’t material combinations using a range complexity
work with those particular materi- of technologies. Ideally, engineers Joining plastics for medical applica-
als, and that’s a problem. “Choosing will think about process, design, and tions adds yet more complexity to the
the perfect material during the prod- materials simultaneously at the initial process. For one thing, material selec-
uct development cycle that can’t be stage of a project, but that doesn’t tion is more limited, especially if the
processed into the design you need always happen and, to state the ob- part comes in contact with the skin or
defin an issue,” J Ellis, PhD, vious, it gets quite complicated. Ellis is implanted. Testing requirements are
senior technology leader at EWI, told

June 2023 PLASTICS NEWS 33