Page 59 - Plastics News September 2023

it has been difficult to recycle nylon material. Nitto Seimo is manufactur- December 2023.
fish nets into fishing net yarn because ing the purse seine nets with this fib- “This drive to develop nylon fibre-to-
the strength and durability of the fib- ber and Taiyo A&F’s offshore fishing fibre recycling technology for fishing
bers deteriorates during the recycling vessel Taiyo Maru No.21 will deploy nets paves the way for the entire tex-
process, due to debris and algae con- them on a trial basis starting Novem- tiles industry to help materialise a cir-
tamination from immersion in the sea. ber. cular economy by conserving and re-
Toray has now leveraged its depoly- The three companies hope to con- cycling resources and reducing wastes
merisation chemical recycling tech- firm the commercial feasibility of the across the supply chain,” said Mitsuo
nology using nylon from ghost nets new fishing nets. Depending on the Ohya, president of Toray.
to develop a recycled fibber that is trial results, they aim to introduce the
reportedly comparable with virgin recycled fishing nets to the market in

TM Robotics' guide to sustainable injection moulding
has been some debate in industry
about the cost and sustainability ad-
vantages of hydraulic injection mould-
ing versus all-electric machines.
Injection moulding machines pow-
ered by a hydraulic motor can pro-
duce higher energy levels and higher
injection pressures, and the initial cost
of the machine is lower. But there
are also disadvantages with hydraulic
machines. They include the machine’s
high consumption of electric energy,
because its hydraulic power is con-
nected to an electric power unit that
ccording to the Journal of Clean ently high production with low waste works at maximum capacity during
AProduction, injection moulding and a low-cost-per-part — the latter every phase of the moulding process.
may be responsible of up to 90 per is always a priority.
cent of the Global Warming Potential Maintaining a low cost-per-part Whole-life cost
(GWP) created by the entire mould throughout the manufacturing pro- Although hydraulic injection moulding
lifecycle, mainly caused by energy cess is vital for reducing costs and machines are less expensive initially,
consumption. delivering a higher product value — it’s important to consider the whole
The Journal of Clean Production’s from both the manufacturer’s and the life cost when buying new machines.
findings are wake-up call to manufac- customer’s perspective. While injec- This was demonstrated by TM Ro-
turers, particularly as demand for in- tion moulding can support this, manu- botics’ customer Lotan, a manufac-
jection moulding processes continue facturers are also concerned about turer of plastic containers based in
to grow. For example, the market for the energy costs of injection mould- Leicestershire, UK. All of the injection
injection moulded medical devices ing, and how this effects sustainability moulding machines in Lotan’s produc-
plastics is expected to see booming and the bottom line. tion facility are electric, rather than
growth between 2023 and 2030. It is claimed that More than 90 per hydraulic.

Injection moulding is used to manu- cent of the costs of injection moulding The company relies on Shibaura Ma-
facture a huge variety of parts, and can be attributed to energy use. This chine’s all-electric injection moulding
has several advantages. They include mainly applies to the electricity used machines (IMM) supplied by TM Ro-
the ability to mould a wide variety of to power and operate the injection botics. The machine is manufactured
plastics, good repeatability, consist- moulding machine. As a result, there in-house by Shibaura Machine, for-
merly known as Toshiba Machine.

PLASTICS NEWS 5959
September 2023 PLASTICS NEWS