Plastic Extrusion & Custom Compounding Services
At the Polymers Technology Center, we offer pilot and full scale production services. Due to our affiliation with the Polymers Center, we can utilize their extrusion laboratories. Our labs contain single screw extruders for making plastic film and plastic sheet, as well as twin screw extruders for compounding plastics and making pellets. We can handle pellets, powders, fibers, granules, flakes and liquids. Our staff is highly experienced in compounding a wide array of specialty fillers and additives into the base resin of your choice. Customers are invited to come and participate in the formulation and compounding of their materials.
Product Development Trials
The creation of new products and formulations is critical to the success of companies in the plastics industry. The Polymers Technology Center assists companies in the development of new products and specialty compounds, research new resin and additive combinations, and the optimization of processes. For trials, we use laboratory scale equipment. This provides the user the flexibility to work with small amounts of material. The process can then be scaled up to larger production.
Engineering
Our affiliation with the Polymers Center allows us to offer extensive engineering services with custom compounds. Our years of experience with hundreds of resin and additive combinations, can help your company develop compounds, masterbatches, and custom products. Our engineers can help with design and processing issues throughout manufacturing.
Compounding
The Polymers Technology Center can provide your company with consistent, high quality compounds in small or large volumes, as well as masterbatches. We can process your exact formulation or work with custom compounds. When your company needs increased manufacturing capability without incurring additional overhead, the Polymers Technology Center can provide what you need, when you need it.
Screw Design
Extruders are remarkable machines that can disperse and distribute materials into a polymer matrix, but each process can be optimized by the screw design. The Technology Center is staffed by engineers and technicians who work closely with our customers to develop the best screw design for each product and process. Our experts know how to configure the many screw elements the Technology Center inventories. When developing or optimizing a process, the more screw element options are available, the more flexibility we have. This allows us to handle a broader range of materials and processes.
Low Shear and High Shear Blending
In cases where reduced particle sizes lead to altered properties, low shear blending is needed. This is relevant for blending delicate or shear sensitive materials such as many polymers. The Technology Center can accommodate low shear products without degradation.
In some cases, particle size reduction is desired or acceptable when faster processing is needed. The Technology Center can also provide high shear mixing.
Reactive Extrusion
Our equipment is capable of combining chemical reactions that are traditionally handled separately with extrusion, in a single process. Our extruders provide excellent mixing capabilities and product handling, making the process significantly more efficient. Polymers Technology Center experience with reactive extrusion processes including chain extension, grafting and viscosity breaking.
