pinfa-NA members participated at ANTEC® 2024, Society of Plastics Engineers Annual Technical Conference, Saint Louis, Missouri, March 2024. With over 400 attendees, the event showcased the latest advances in industrial, laboratory, academic, and international work on plastics and polymers. Sessions included Industry 4.0 (digitalization), AI (Machine Learning applied to molecular design of polymers), Bio-paths to low carbon, safer and differentiated polyethylene products, up-cycling of polymers to increase recycled content, polymers additives, as well as a special symposium with Glenn Beall, a pioneer in the design of polymer based products.
The additive related presentations emphasised replacement of PFAS with alternative technologies to improve processing and to prevent flaming-dripping (and so fire spread), in particular: Ingenia Polymers non-PFAS polymer processing aids including for film extrusion; Vertellus microencapsulation solutions for “hard to use”, highly reactive or PCMs (phase change materials), including microencapsulation of Red Phosphorus; BP Polymers barrier resins as an alternative to PFAS in flexible packaging applications; Kaneka silicone core shell impact modifier to enhance PIN FR performance in electrical and electrical transportation applications.
Student poster sessions focused on the upcycling of recycle streams into a variety of industrial applications, e.g. sustainable composites, filtration media and insulation applications.
Summary by Maggie Baumann, with thanks.
ANTEC® 2024 proceedings https://www.4spe.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=8706
ANTEC® 2025 will be in Philadelphia, USA 3-5 March 2025 https://www.4spe.org/