issue 05/2025

issue 04/2025

issue 03/2025

Contact

Journal

Media Data

Subscriptions

Subscription

Subscription Cancellation

My Login

Imprint

Terms & Conditions

Terms and Conditions

Privacy Policy

Mobility

Packaging

Medical

Electrical/Electronics

Plastics Recycling

Lightweight Construction

Applications

Thermoplastics

Standard Thermoplastics

Engineering Plastics

High-Performance Plastics

Elastomers

Thermosets

Additives/Masterbatches

Bioplastics

Composites

Materials

Injection Molding

Extrusion

Additive Manufacturing

Further Processing Methods

Compounding

Composite Processing

Peripheral Equipment

Simulation

Processing

Research & Development

Dissertations

Patents

Journal of Plastics Technology

Italy

Switzerland

China

Türkiye

Country Specials

NPE 2024

Career at HANSER

HANSER Fachbuch

HANSER eLibrary

HANSER eSolutions

HANSER eCampus

HANSER Corporate

HANSER Literaturverlage

Publisher offers

Kunststoffe

FORM+Werkzeug

HANSER automotive

QZ Qualität und Zuverlässigkeit

WB Werkstatt + Betrieb

More Technical Portals

Online Archive

Newsletter

Publisher

Zu Kunststoffe wechseln

Service Menu

linkedin

News

Products

Partners & Associations

Organ

Business Directory

Galleries

Gallery

Whitepaper

Plastics Discovery Tour

Fakuma

Moldmaking in Portugal: Tools meet values. On a journey of discovery with the VDWF in eight companies.

Portugal has its charms beyond toolmaking as well. One example is the Dom Luís I Bridge in Porto, a two-level steel structure connecting the old town of Porto with Vila Nova de Gaia. It was designed  by a student of Gustave Eiffel.

16:9

Strategie und Organisation

Schröder, Susanne

Werkzeugbau

Toolmaking Meets Values:  Where Portugal Comes into Play

Pollmann is the first automotive supplier in Europe to purchase an Allrounder Cube injection molding machine. Cube mold technology and machine design enable enormous output.

The Allrounder Cube and the 4 × 16-cavity cube mold can produce 16 million parts per year. 

Spritzgießwerkzeuge

Spritzgießmaschinen

KFZ-Zulieferer

Firing on All Four Cylinders

Different countries have different customs, and this also applies to plastic recycling.

What are countries and companies around the world doing for the circular economy in the plastics industry?

Verbände, Institutionen, Messen

International Strategies for the  Circular Economy

Machine vision MoldWatcher prevents tooling damage and detects short shots in medical molding operation.

MoldWatcher machine vision prevents tooling damage.

Spritzgießen

Bildverarbeitung

Bildverarbeitung, Machine Vision

Spritzgieß-Zubehör und Einzelteile

Medizintechnik

Proactive Mold Protection

Air suspension systems are increasingly being used in cars. In production, metal can be replaced by plastics – if the material is suitable.

Air suspension systems are much more common in electric vehicles than in those with a combustion engine.

Polyamide

Kunststoff Werkstoffe

Dämpfer / Federn

Technische Kunststoffe

Sprung with Air, Engineered with Plastic

Self-lubricating high-performance plastic gears enable clean, maintenance-free drives – ideal for medical applications.

Solid lubricants are already integrated into gears made from tribologically optimized plastics.

Additive Fertigung

Ensuring Smooth Operation

Inline color measurement is essential for automatic color adjustment of recyclates. Good results have now been obtained in an industrial project.

Color sensor front end, including the device for height adjustment of the product stream, immediately after pelletization and the drying process of the recyclate: The 20 mm-sized measurement spot compensates for the random position of the pellets and the vibration of the vibratory conveyor, and thereby ensures high measurement accuracy.

Farbmessgeräte

Messgeräte für Farbe

Messtechnik

Farbstoffe

Kunststoff-Rezyklat

Automatically Adjusting to the  Desired Color

High-resolution measurement of the internal geometry with the Circular Triangulation Sensor.

The Crawler is a high-precision 3D pipe scanning robot with an integrated 360° sensor used to inspect pipes at any depth for inner diameter, roundness, and surface defects. 

Extruder Inspection with CiTriS Technology

Inline-Messtechnik

38 Million Measurement Points  in Three Minutes

PA particle foam (EPA) has better properties than conventional polymer foams. Components made from EPA can also be overmolded with PA.

The relatively large-volume EPA core (left) can be overmolded. This extends the design freedom and enables large-volume but comparatively lightweight components (right).

Schaumspritzgießen

Schaumstoffe und Vorprodukte

Partikelschäumen

Schaumstoffe

Overmolding PA Foam with PA

The final part of our series of articles on the life and work of Kunststoffe’s  editor Erich Escales.

Gertraut and Erich Escales, photo from 1971 (click for full view of the picture).

A New Beginning in  Uncertain Times

Needle, pin and rotary shut-off nozzles offer tailor-made solutions for various injection molding applications. From processing low-viscosity to highly filled plastics, they are precisely tailored to the respective requirements.

Shut-off nozzle in use: Precisely adapted to various injection molding processes.

Düsen, allgemein

Schnecken und Plastifiziersysteme

Precise Material Control

How Weiss Kunststoffverarbeitung GmbH & Co. KG in Illertissen, Germany, developed from an extended workbench to a system supplier in 80 years.

At a high level: The ride-height control housing for trucks must withstand 11 bar pressure. Nine parts are ultrasonically welded in the assembly line and subsequently tested for leak tightness.

“We Must Go to the Limits  of What Is Feasible”

Recent studies show that the blowing agent content and expansion ratio during negative molding offer the greatest potential for optimization in order to achieve reliable and reproducible foam structures.

Sample section of an expanded, glass fiber-reinforced PP-GF30 foam plate. 

Investigation of thermoplastic foam morphologies under the influence of the manufacturing process using x-ray computed tomography 

Computer-Tomografie-Systeme

Qualitätssicherung Kunststoff

Non-Destructive 3D Analysis  of Foam Structures

Buss co-kneader technology makes it possible to optimize compounding, pressure build-up and pelletizing independently of each other.

The core of the co-kneading technology is a temperature-controlled, oscillating screw shaft.

Granulieren

Compoundieren

Perfect Interaction

The packaging world of the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries has long been balancing a tension between sustainable claims and regulatory reality.

Extrusion of PE films in the ISO7 cleanroom at Peku Folien. Recyclates are not permitted here, but certified bioplastics are.

For some time now, the packaging world of the medical device and pharmaceutical industries has been juggling sustainable aspirations and regulatory realities. Demand, reality and outlook

Verpackungsmittel aus Kunststoffen

Folien

Kunststoff-Recycling

Medizinprodukte

Claim, Reality, and Outlook

Because batteries used to be a far cry from today’s high-tech cells, more reliable energy sources were needed, such as this dynamo-powered flashlight.

Dynamo flashlight made by the Schmidt brothers in 1940.

Batterien

Duroplastische Werkstoffe

Duroplaste

Light against Demons

How Servomold scores with servo-electric core pulls.

The space-saving, µm-precise SLY Core Pulling Unit, shown here fully assembled. 

Medizintechnik (KU)

Normalien und Heißkanaltechnik

Focus on Medical Technology

To make sensible use of recycled materials, they must be of a comparable quality to new materials. A new sorting technology could help.

With the PIDEA system, objects can be detected multiple times for statistical evaluation. 

Recycling

Sortierer

Additive

Inspektion, Analyse und Sortierung von Rohmaterial

Kreislaufwirtschaft

Sorting Done Differently

Until now, old car tires have only been recycled to a limited extent. A process from Evonik is now set to bring about a breakthrough.

Crumb rubber from end-of-life tires before processing (left), after processing without devulcanization agents (center), and after processing with devulcanization agents (right): The objective of the project at Evonik is to increase the proportion of recycled material from end-of-life tires that can be reused in the production of new tires.

Kautschuk / Elastomere

On the Road Again

A new masterbatch enables greater color homogeneity in PVC products. The secret behind it is the small pellet size.

During the mixing tests in the laboratory, the SSP did not settle.

Masterbatches

Farbstoffe und Pigmente

Polyvinylchlorid

Small Pellet, Higher Quality

The demands placed on electric car batteries are high. In one project, function-integrating, lightweight solutions for the components were developed.