Overview: Panorama
A loyal companion: LVR Museum shows development of plastics over time
10/01/2023
Plastics are part of our lives - yesterday, today and tomorrow. The LVR Museum in Oberhausen, Germany, has dedicated an entire exhibition to plastics: "Class and Mass" comprises over 20,000 objects from the collection of the German Plastics Museum, which have been on permanent loan in Oberhausen since 2017 - it is the largest collection on the subject of plastics in Germany.
Manufacturing solid surfaces with RIM – Arfinio makes it possible
07/12/2022
Something is only impossible as long as you don't try. Covestro has developed the new Arfinio manufacturing technology, the first application to allow reaction injection molding of aliphatic polyurethanes. Joan Miquel Garcia Martinez explains in an interview why this was previously considered unthinkable and why it now works after all.
Bend it like PU – Plastics in sport
30/11/2022
Today, no one can imagine leather balls, wooden rackets, bamboo poles or cinder tracks in sporting competition. Natural materials have now been almost completely replaced by other materials: plastics. They are light, robust and highly functional. Thanks to intensive research, they are also becoming more and more efficient – and ultimately lead to new world records.
Wonderfully versatile: Plastics shape the car of the future
17/11/2022
The versatility of plastic is one of its strongest characteristics, and it makes it particularly popular amongst designers. Plastic is also a favored material for BASF's design team: in collaboration with Citroën, the chemical company rethought the classic car - with plastic as the central building block that made the implementation of the innovative concept possible in the first place.
Building and construction sector: An industry relies on plastics
08/11/2022
Polymers are as diverse as their chemical composition. Plastics come in hard, soft, flexible, brittle, opaque, transparent - just as required. They impress with their durability, cost-effectiveness, impermeability to water, high formability, corrosion resistance and low weight. This makes them the ideal building material - and an environmentally friendly alternative to other materials.
"We are looking at how to redesign products and how to re-use parts of them"
21/10/2022
"Designers love solving problems."
14/10/2022
Sue Neuhauser and Page Beermann of Faraday Future talk about the opportunities for CMF in the automotive industry.
Full view: Transparent tool enables insight into filling processes of particle foams
11/10/2022
The filling of a mold determines the quality of the resulting molded part. But what if insight into the filling process of particle foams is not available and thus control is lacking at this crucial point in the production process? A new transparent experimental mold made of acrylic glass developed by Neue Materialien Bayreuth (NMB) has put an end to this dilemma.
Interview with Nick Garfias & Jonathan Thompson, Oakley
30/09/2022