event review | Compounding World Forum
CPM Century Extrusion’s Adam Dreiblatt discussed the use of process modeling software
(NIC), a special kneading barrel used to improve dispersion, and the TKD twisted kneading disc, which is a mixing element that produces lower shear and less compaction than traditional kneading blocks. Combin- ing the NIC and TKD produces synergistic improve- ments and can increase productivity in compounding with fillers, said Martin. Process modeling tools are valuable for optimising
the compounding process because they can be used to test designs and conditions through simulation before running physical experiments on the extruder. Simula- tion can also provide insight into the process and give information that is not otherwise available, said Adam Dreiblatt, Director of Process Technology at CPM Century Extrusion, who described the use of one- dimensional simulation to identify how processing variables affect specific energy. He explained that modeling, confirmed by experiment, has found that spe- cific energy cannot be significantly reduced for a given system because most of the energy goes into the melting process. David Bigio, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, expounded the concept of specific throughput - the ratio of throughput (Q) to screw speed (N) - as a powerful way to model and evaluate what is happening inside an extruder. Experiments have confirmed the conclusions of three-dimensional predictive modeling, which shows that temperature, N, and Q/N are key.
Disruptive technologies All generally agree that innovation is key for companies to thrive. Phantom Plastics President Chris DeArmitt, who describes himself as a “serial innovator”, entertained the audience with some highlights from his new book, “Innovation Abyss: An Innovator’s Solutions to Corporate Innovation Failure.” He recounted how the route to innovation means finding creative and open people.
Jeff Cernohous is President and Founder of Interfacial
Consultants, which is dedicated to incubating ideas using contract development services and technology platform incubation through partnerships as well as internal platforms. Cernohous is CTO and chairman of Rev Materials, an example of an internally incubated platform that provides small (2-25kg) samples for companies to use for R&D. The business is disruptive because it offers small sample sizes on unprecedented short lead times (1-2 days for in-stock materials). He said the company aims to be the “Amazon of custom materials.” Quantisweb Techologies has introduced a method for optimising polymer compound development by using a proprietary statistical model and software to analyse the huge number of process, ingredient, and property variables available. Nina Visconti, Vice-President of Strategic Development at Quantisweb, is leading the company’s approach to using multi-target methodolo- gies to optimise product recipe and manufacturing process simultaneously. In addition to the design-of- experiments approach for product development, Quantisweb software can use data mining of production data to optimise processes. Industry 4.0 – also characterised as the smart
factory or the Internet of Things – could prove to be a disruptive technology that boosts compounding to the next level, but adoption has been slow, explained Sven Wolf, Managing Director of Leistritz Extrusiontechnik. Wolf presented an example of how in-line measurement of MFI in a large-scale PP compounding process can be used with advanced sensors and control technology to optimise the process and improve pellet quality. Fully “self-optimising” production processes using big-data mining to predict and control process deviations are already a reality in other industries (steel mills are one example), said Wolf, and could become a reality for the plastics industry in the future.
About the Compounding World Forum
The fourth Compounding World Forum was held in Philadelphia, PA, USA, on 13-14 December 2016. The event was organised by Applied Market Information and Compounding World magazine and sponsored by CPM Century Extrusion, Dow Corning, Entek Extruders, Japan Steel Works America (JSW), Modern Dispersion Inc. (MDI), NFM Welding Engineers, and Nordson. More than 200 attendees took in the two full days of presentations and visited
78 COMPOUNDING WORLD | January 2017
the 49 exhibitors in the spacious table- top exhibition area. The fifth Compounding World Forum
will take place on 13-14 December 2017 in the new location of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US. To find out more about attending, speaking, sponsoring or exhibiting at the 2017 event, or to buy copies of the 2016 conference proceedings, contact Senior Conference Producer Kelly DeFino. Email:
kd@amiplastics-na.com; Tel: +1 610 478 0800
Other Compounding World conferences The Compounding World Forum is one of three global compounding industry events organised by Applied Market Information and Compounding World magazine. The third Compounding World Congress
takes place in Cologne in Germany on 24-26 April 2017. The third Compounding World Asia
conference will be held in Singapore on 21-22 September 2017.
www.compoundingworld.com
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