Petrochemicals PET-Bottle – Germany’s 2023 GDP expected to decline by 0.6% 02-10-2023
Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
Petrochemicals PET-Bottle – DFRL, Mysuru develops biodegradable water bottles
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Sidel unveils StarLITE®R – a new, ultra-efficient 100% rPET bottle for carbonated soft drinks
To help carbonated soft drink (CSD) packaging producers embrace material circularity, Sidel has launched StarLITE®R – a 100% rPET bottle. Sidel’s signature StarLITE® family is evolving to address the challenges associated with working with recycled content.StarLITE®R allows CSD producers to switch to rPET bottle production with ease and efficiency, while significantly reducing the impact on product quality or packaging integrity.
Embracing 100% rPET
With over 45 years of experience in the blowing and PET packaging sector, Sidel has developed a deep understanding of recycled PET resin characteristics and its impact on bottle production. Laurent Naveau, Packaging Innovator Leader at Sidel, comments on the challenge rPET resin can present the packaging industry:
“The characteristics of rPET are impacted by several factors. Firstly, by seasonality. Consumption habits fluctuate over the course of the year impacting the product category mix. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
And secondly, by different PET collection models which means that post-consumer PET material bales will vary from region-to-region and even country-to-country. The recycling process and equipment used will also influence PET resin. All these factors can pose new challenges for manufacturers looking to produce bottles with rPET content.”
In addition to common CSD bottle manufacturing challenges such as stress cracking, roll out and bursting during blowing, a higher temperature is also required to process rPET. Consequently, packaging manufacturers can experience reduced control over rPET material stretching and distribution of the substance in the bottle-making process.
Traditionally, greater variability in rPET resin leads to a narrower process window and lower bottle quality. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
However, Sidel’s innovative base, StarLITE®R uses leading technologies to ensure efficient rPET bottle production by restoring a much wider process window. The StarLITE®R design is easier to blow as it can be done within a wider range of parameter settings on the blower achieving a much higher quality bottle.
High performance rPET bottle base
To achieve a high performing rPET bottle base, StarLITE®R features an optimised mould base profile and uses an advanced stretch rod end design.
The new mould base profile allows for perfect material distribution through advanced stretching and a high base clearance for optimum stability. The advanced stretch rod end design has improved the preform end-cap material stretching and ensures accurate injection gate centering on the bottle. Finally, the perfect combination of grooves and venting holes allows for high-precision base feet formation.
The new bottle solution also utilises dual external and internal bottle base cooling to ensure a perfect shape. Externally, the process uses a mould base cooling circuit that focuses on the warmer bottle base zones and internally a hollow-stretch rod requiring no additional air supply is used. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
Domo Chemicals awarded gold rating from EcoVadis
Domo now ranks in the top 5% of all companies rated by EcoVadis
Belgium-based engineering materials manufacturer Domo Chemicals has received a gold sustainability score from EcoVadis, a leading provider of business sustainability ratings. This overall rating puts Domo in the top 5% of companies in the sector.
EcoVadis evaluates more than 85,000 organisations in over 160 countries and in over 200 industries every year. Based on 21 criteria, the rating assesses a company’s performance in four categories: Environment, Labour and Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
Compared to last year, Domo moved from the 73rd to 94th percentile in the overall EcoVadis sustainability rating. The company scored particularly well in the categories Environment and Labour and Human Rights.
“This award is a testament to our unwavering commitment to sustainability,” said Yves Bonte, CEO of Domo Chemicals. “In one year, we have moved from the top 25% to the top 5%, placing Domo amongst the best in the industry. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
Germany’s 2023 GDP expected to decline by 0.6%: Report
INSIGHTS
- A recent report has suggested that Germany may see a 0.6 per cent drop in GDP for 2023, revising earlier spring forecasts downward by 0.9 percentage points.
- The country’s economic downturn has worsened due to surging energy prices and climbing interest rates.
- Improvements are expected by year-end, and GDP growth of 1.3 per cent is projected for 2024.
Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the year 2023 may witness a 0.6 per cent decline, as per a recent report. This marks a significant downward revision of 0.9 percentage points compared to predictions made earlier in the spring.
Struggling for over a year, Germany’s economic downturn intensified with the surge in energy prices in 2022. This rise has inflated consumer prices by over 8 per cent, thereby affecting the purchasing power of households. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
Key interest rates have also climbed by over four percentage points, adversely impacting the construction industry, according to the Joint Economic Forecast prepared by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the ifo Institute (Munich), the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), and RWI (Essen).
Business sentiment has been negatively affected recently, due in part to heightened political uncertainty. However, there are signs of improvement on the horizon. Wage hikes have kept pace with increasing prices, energy costs are dropping, and exporters are managing to pass on some of their elevated costs. These factors suggest a resurgence in purchasing power and are expected to mitigate the downturn by year-end.
Looking ahead to 2024, the institutes project a GDP growth of 1.3 per cent, only slightly lower than their spring forecast. However, a shrinking labour force in the coming years is expected to curtail potential growth rates. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
The economic downturn has begun to affect the labour market. Unemployment is expected to increase moderately to 2.6 million people in 2023, but it is likely to decrease somewhat in the following year.
Tesla Shares Analyst Vehicle Delivery Consensus as It Works To Lower Expectations Ahead of Quarterly Decline
Tesla is currently working to significantly expand vehicle production, as a result, the company posting record after record vehicle production and delivery numbers has become somewhat expected.
For instance, last Quarter Tesla posted the best vehicle production and delivery number in the company’s 10-plus years history. In Q2 2023, Tesla produced 480,000 vehicles and delivered 466,000 vehicles. The quarter was also a record in all aspects including revenue and profits. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
However, this quarter appears to be one in which Tesla will not set a record production number. This quarter Tesla is expected to post a rare quarter-over-quarter vehicle production and delivery decline.
There are multiple reasons to account for this quarter’s production and delivery decline. However, the main culprit for the decline is that Tesla has shut down production at multiple factories to either switch to a refreshed model or to upgrade production lines for efficiency and increase output.
Tesla’s Shanghai factory was shut down to switch to the refreshed Model 3 which was introduced at the beginning of this month. Tesla’s Texas factory was also shut down to perform upgrades to the Model Y production line and to prepare for Cybertruck volume production which is expected to begin in October. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
In the long run, these shutdowns will help Tesla not only to produce better products but will also enable the EV maker to significantly increase vehicle production. However, public companies are required to post their performance on a quarterly basis which means all these shutdowns will show up as a decrease in Tesla’s production and delivery numbers quarter over quarter.
Quảng Yên Petrochemical plant granted technology transfer licences
The Stavian Quảng Yên Petrochemical Plant Project officially received the technology transfer licences for petrochemical technology to produce polypropylene (PP) resins from the Quảng Ninh Department of Science and Technology at Techconnect and Innovation Việt Nam 2023, under the witness of Deputy Prime Minister Trần Lưu Quang.
Techconnect and Innovation Việt Nam 2023, with the theme “Innovation – Sustainable Development”, is a national-level event of significant importance, supporting businesses in the province to connect, transfer, and receive modern technologies to serve socio-economic development. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
The Stavian Quảng Yên Petrochemical Plant is being built on an area of 30ha in Bắc Tiền Phong Industrial Park, Tiền Phong Commune, Quảng Yên Town, Quảng Ninh Province. The project has an estimated total investment of up to US$1.5 billion with a production scale of 600,000 tonnes of polypropylene per year, applying the world’s most advanced copyrighted technologies from Honeywell UOP Company (USA) and Basell Poliolefine Italia Company (Italy). This includes propylene production technology from propane using the hydrogen reduction method and polypropylene production technology using Spheripol technology.
In addition to the cutting-edge technology, the Stavian Quảng Yên Petrochemical Plant will be equipped with a high-tech, automated, and eco-friendly production line imported from EU and G7 countries. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
They will apply more advanced solutions to optimise water use in production, ensuring energy savings and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Stavian Quảng Yên Petrochemical 2023 also officially announced the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contractor for the Stavian Quảng Yên Petrochemical Plant Project. With the extremely promising potential for developing petrochemical production in Việt Nam, the project is expected to attract further projects in these industries.
More sustainable injection moulding
According to the Journal of Clean Production, injection moulding may be responsible of up to 90 per cent of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) created by the entire mould lifecycle, mainly caused by energy consumption. Here, Dervish Ibrahim, international sales manager at TM Robotics, explains why all-electric injection moulding machines are ‘the way forward’ for reducing the process’s environmental impact — while also helping manufacturers achieve a lower cost-per-part. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
The Journal of Clean Production’s findings are a wake-up call to manufacturers, particularly as demand for injection moulding processes continue to grow. For example, the market for injection moulded medical devices plastics is expected to see booming growth between 2023 and 2030.
Injection moulding is used to manufacture a huge variety of parts, and has several advantages. They include the ability to mould a wide variety of plastics, good repeatability, consistently high production with low waste and a low-cost-per-part — the latter is always a priority.
Maintaining a low cost-per-part throughout the manufacturing process is vital for reducing costs and delivering a higher product value — from both the manufacturer’s and the customer’s perspective. While injection moulding can support this, manufacturers are also concerned about the energy costs of injection moulding, and how this effects sustainability and the bottom line. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
More than 90 per cent of the costs of injection moulding can be attributed to energy use. This mainly applies to the electricity used to power and operate the injection moulding machine. As a result, there has been some debate in industry about the cost and sustainability advantages of hydraulic injection moulding versus all-electric machines.
Injection moulding machines powered by a hydraulic motor can produce 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 connected to an electric power unit that works at maximum capacity during every phase of the moulding process.
Whole-life cost
Although hydraulic injection moulding machines are less expensive initially, it’s important to consider the whole life cost when buying new machines. This was demonstrated by TM Robotics’ customer Lotan, a manufacturer of plastic containers based in Leicestershire, UK. All of the injection moulding machines in Lotan’s production facility are electric, rather than hydraulic. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
The company relies on Shibaura Machine’s all-electric injection moulding machines (IMM) supplied by TM Robotics. The machine is manufactured in-house by Shibaura Machine, formerly known as Toshiba Machine. Performance benefits of the IMM include a range of clamping force from 50 to 2,500 tons, which can be calibrated by a digital direct screw transfer (DST) control for added production flexibility.
Although all-electric machines are initially more expensive with lower injection pressures, they are shown to outperform hydraulic versions in a variety of other ways. Advantages include higher rates and speeds of injection because the all-electric maching relies on toggle clamping rather than direct pressure clamping, which is better for high-speed injection moulding. Petrochemicals PET-Bottle
Petrochemicals PET-Bottle