News
from the
Scottish Plastics and Rubber Association

June 2010
 







 
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PRESIDENT'S REPORT



I am pleased to report that the SPRA has had a very positive year. Our membership has strengthened, our technical programme has delivered some excellent presentations with record turnouts and our annual Dinner Dance was widely regarded as one of the very best we have hosted. We also organised our first event entirely for school pupils - the 'Fantastic Plastic' presentation at Edinburgh Napier University last September. This was so successful that we have planned to run it again this year and with two venues this time to cater for the even larger anticipated audience.

I am delighted that we have been able to recruit 7 new Corporate Members in 2010. This will help raise the profile of the SPRA and also provide a boost to membership income. The SPRA's heightened profile is also reflected in two awards from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. The SPRA has been recognised as Local Society of the Year, from 60 Local Societies throughout the UK, and Charlie Geddes received an Outstanding Service Award, after many years service on the SPRA Council and its predecessors.

The SPRA continues to maintain and develop links with a wide variety of other industry and government bodies, associations and organisations, ensuring that the SPRA voice is continually being heard.

The economic backdrop has continued to be very tough for our industry but some companies are now seeing signs of improvement. Investment decisions, which have been delayed awaiting the outcome of the General Election, should now move along and the weaker pound will continue to help our industry members develop their export business.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our members for their support over the last year at our different events and I look forward to meeting more of you in the year ahead. My sincere thanks to my fellow Council members for all their efforts and valuable input over the last 12 months. Let's hope the year ahead is a good one for all of us!

Fergus Hardie, SPRA President
PLASTICS RECYCLING

At the April meeting at Forth Valley College, Falkirk, the theme of Plastics Recycling attracted an audience from a wide spectrum, including the waste management sector, plastics processors and academia.


MIXED PLASTICS WASTE RECYCLING
Kevin Ross, Business Development Manager with Impact Solutions, the Grangemouth based consultancy, set the scene by describing the challenges presented by mixed plastics arising from the domestic waste stream. After removal of the high value components (bottles), in many cases the remainder mostly goes to landfill at present. Energy from waste is an option but not very popular in the UK. There is a plant at Grangemouth capable of converting waste plastics to petrochemical feedstock but current economics are not yet conducive for its implementation.
For mechanical recycling there is a dilemma of cost of segregation against cost of collection. The critical step of automated separation of the mixed plastic waste into identifiable sub streams, each with a significant market value, can involve some high technology, high capital cost equipment. Even then a single stream, eg polyolefins, will contain a variety of grades, each designed for specific end applications and conversion process.
Other keys are the market outlets and how to add value to recyclate. Using recyclate for low value bulk applications is not an attractive solution. Closed loop recycling is an elegant solution but there is an opportunity to add value by incorporating additives such as clays and wood fibre to enhance mechanical properties.



Impact Solutions has demonstrated that ageing in plastics products is largely a surface phenomenon and accounts for deterioration in mechanical properties but products made from recyclate have properties very close to the original virgin material.

 

Kevin Ross
01324 489 182
kevin.ross@impact-solutions.co.uk
www.impact-solutions.co.uk

CLOSED LOOP RECYCLING
Chris Dow, MD of Closed Loop Recycling Ltd in Dagenham, explained the origins, developments and successes of an innovative approach to closed loop recycling for the food industry. The concept was devised at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, where goods were taken back after use, recycled and manufactured back into new products. The concept works best with demand-led recycling as opposed to collecting a range of material and trying to identify end markets.
The Dagenham facility, which was opened in 2008 with a capacity to recycle 35,000 tonnes per annum - equivalent to 875 million bottles, is the first facility in the world to produce food grade recycled polyethyleneterephthalate (rPET) and high density polyethylene (rHDPE).
CLR accepts waste plastic bottles in bale form and the process sequence consists of dry cleaning, optical sorting of bottles, manual sort, granulation, washing, final sorting and purification. Dry cleaning in large trommel screens removes dirt and caps while magnets and eddy current separators remove metals.
The first automated optical sort stage separates the bottles into three streams: clear PET, natural HDPE and coloured PET/HDPE. The different streams are then cut into flakes and subjected to a washing process to remove contamination, including labels. Flotation techniques separate lower density polyolefins from higher density PET. The flakes then undergo a final optical sort to remove the last traces of unwanted material.
So that the rPET and rHDPE output is acceptable to the food industry there is a final purification stage. For the PET stream this consists of treatment of the flakes with solid caustic soda at 200degC to remove the outer layer and leave a pure rPET, indistinguishable from virgin PET. The HDPE stream undergoes high temperature, low pressure decontamination before extrusion and pelletisation.
CLR's success can be attributed to an innovative approach to recycling and investment in high technology techniques but most of the success is down to implementation of sound business practice. Chris is in continual dialogue with waste suppliers to ensure that the contamination levels in the input stream are kept as low as possible. Initially non-bottle contamination in the incoming bales was as high as 40% but good relations with 20 MRFs (Materials Recovery Facilities) has seen contamination greatly reduced. At the same time he is in discussions with the end users, retailers and OEMs, to ensure CLR's output meets their expectation. Good continuous improvement initiatives within the company have pushed contamination levels down, from 2% to less than 200 ppm in the case of glue and PVC levels are now under 50 ppm.
CLR is already planning additional capacity but there needs to be more effort put into the collection of bottles throughout the UK and encouragement of designers to design for recycling. The reduction of weight in packaging, one of the aims of the original Courtauld agreement, does not help the economics of recycling and, in Courtauld II, this is recognised with a shift away from weight targets to overall environmental impact over the complete life cycle. Chris suggested that the PRN (Packaging Waste Recovery Notes) system in the UK needs overhauling.

Chris Dow
02085 936 040
chris.dow@closedlooprecycling.co.uk
www.closedlooprecycling.co.uk

RECYCLING GRANT
Iain Gulland, Director of Zero Waste Scotland (formerly WRAP) outlined the latest grant available to companies planning to establish a plastics recycling facility in Scotland. The Scottish Government is making available up to £5 million for projects that will divert a minimum of 20,000 tonnes per annum of plastics from landfill.
As with similar projects there are restrictions:
o Must be a capital investment and be located in Scotland
o Must include segregation
o Must include household waste stream
o Further downstream reprocessing will score more highly
o Energy from waste is excluded
o Technology must be proven
o Facility must be operational by Dec 2013
o Must comply with EU State Aid Regulations.

The deadline for submission of proposals is 30 August 2010.
Applicants will be informed by mid-October and contracts signed before the end of February 2011.
For further details click here
or telephone Sarah Burns 01295 819652
www.zerowastescotland.org.uk

From l to r: Chris Dow (Closed Loop Recycling Ltd), Kevin Ross (Impact Solutions), Fergus Hardie (SPRA President), Les Rose (SPRA Past President and Meeting Chairman), Iain Gulland (Zero Waste Scotland)

Chris Dow, Iain Gulland, Fergus Hardie and Ian Montgomery (SPRA member) in discussion
CLEAN BREAK FOR HOOVER R&D


May 2010 marks the first anniversary of Hoover's move from the old factory based offices at Cambuslang to a new facility at Uddingston. The Research and Development Team, as the last remaining part of the Cambuslang workforce, have settled into the new surroundings which incorporate new offices and laboratories with brand new state-of-the-art Floorcare testing equipment.

Hoover, an early SPRA Corporate Member, was originally an American owned company, founded in 1908, which developed the first "Hoover" vacuum cleaner, became a limited company in 1919 and settled in the UK in 1932 at Perivale in West London. The Floorcare factory in Cambuslang, Scotland was set up in 1946.

The UK facilities were operated by Hoover until 1995 when the European arm of the Company was sold, including the famous brand, to the Candy Group. The Candy Group is a family owned business based in Milan, Italy with a strong European presence in the white goods sector. Hoover was acquired to strengthen the white goods side of the Candy business, and also gave Candy a start into the Floorcare business.

From 1995, Candy worked to make this new business within Small Domestic Appliances (SDA) an effective division within the company. This plan was very successful, and in 2005, Hoover became the Number 1 brand in Europe (for SDA, by volume, according to GfK marketing data).

The Floorcare business, primarily based in Scotland, was operated from 1995, while all the time trying to make this part of the business profitable. Finally in 2002, cost pressures forced the company to look offshore for a lower cost manufacturing base. China was selected due to the incumbent Floorcare expertise that already existed, and also since Floorcare products are relatively small and can be container shipped economically in large quantities. Hoover now has an engineering office in Suzhou City, China which manages the development and introduction of new Floorcare products for the European market.

The last production line closed at Cambuslang in June 2005, nearly 60 years after production started, the end of an era! Whilst production of Floorcare products in the UK had ceased, the company took the decision to retain the R & D facility in Scotland. This decision was based on the skill of the employees within the R & D team which could not easily be transferred offshore.

The R & D team continues to flourish especially in these new surroundings. Development continues in a number of specialist areas; prototype and production conformance testing, approvals and safety testing, competitor analysis, separation development and testing and general filtration development.

The business has also leveraged local investment support with funding for R & D Projects.

The links to local academic establishments have been extremely fruitful:
a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme has been running for the past year with Strathclyde University;

a PhD 3 year project is due to start at the end of the summer;

over the past 4 years Hoover has run successful University Projects (both individual and group) with Strathclyde University, The University of the West of Scotland and Glasgow School of Art;

Fluid Dynamics courses have also been run internally for existing employees to extend the knowledge base.
So, in spite of losing the manufacturing side of the business to offshore locations, Hoover sees great benefit in keeping an active R & D team in Scotland, and seeks to leverage these benefits more and more in the coming years.

Report by
John Semple
R&D Manager
Hoover Candy Group


01698 803 653
john.semple@hoovercandy.com
www.hoover.co.uk


POLYMERS IN OIL & GAS CONFERENCE


Two SPRA members, Peter Warren (James Walker Ltd) and Dr Ed Clutton (Impact Solutions) presented papers at the prestigious international conference, High Performance Elastomers & Polymers for Oil & Gas in Aberdeen in April.
This biennial conference on HPE (high performance elastomers) had been re-focused on the Oil & Gas industry and extended to include polymers. This has been largely successful, although the polymer content was still rather limited.

After the opening keynote paper from Buc Slay of Halliburton USA, highlighting the broad specification requirements in the area and need to reduce the associated documentation, the first session included four papers on developments in high performance materials. All aspects of required elastomer performance were introduced - HP/HT conditions, low temperature, rapid gas decompression (RGD), aggressive fluids (H2S, CO2, steam) - and a range of material solutions were discussed - HNBR, FKM, urethane, et al.

Photo courtesy of iSmither Rapra
Peter Warren of James Walker led the second session of papers and gave a clear exposition of how to optimise property balance for FKM elastomers particularly with respect to chemical and RGD resistance. This theme was continued by Solvay Solexis
and Zeon Chemicals for FFKM and HNBR systems, respectively. In the former, improved low temperature performance was obtained from novel comonomer systems; in the latter, improved properties were claimed from modified systems with a more homogeneous structure.
The final session of the first day entitled "Novel Compounds and Compounding" comprised three papers highlighting very different facets of elastomer technology - the optimisation of compounding to maximise properties, the production of conductive rubbers via choice of carbon black and the choice of filler particle size to achieve desired flame retardancy levels. Day one ended with a networking drinks event as a precursor to informally arranged dinners.
Following an informal networking breakfast provided by the Copthorne Hotel, the delegates were treated to a second day of technical papers. The first session focused on testing, covering lifetime assessment of polymers when subjected to chemical attack, and resistance of selected elastomers to steam, H2S and CO2 used for enhanced oil recovery. A paper describing an FEA model to simulate the effects of RGD completed the session. Compatibility testing of elastomers in drilling fluids at high pressures to populate a database for use by end-users for product selection and material compositions for umbilical cable coverings followed coffee.

The final session featured three papers. The first two covered flexible insulation followed by a study of potential future developments in engineering plastics materials that would allow their use at higher pressures and temperatures. SPRA's own Dr Ed Clutton (Impact Solutions UK) brought the conference to a close with his interesting paper entitled ' Evaluation techniques for the assessment of polymer performance in multilayer pipe systems for oil and gas'.
Copies of conference papers can be purchased from iSmithers Rapra
Click here for more details


Peter Warren
James Walker Ltd
01900 823 555
peter.warren@jameswalker.biz
www.jameswalker.co.uk


Ed Clutton
Impact Solutions
01324 489 182
ed.clutton@impact-solutions.co.uk
www.impact-solutions.co.uk

OIL & GAS EXHIBITION

At least 94 UK companies, including 38 of Scotland's most innovative oil and gas companies and organizations showcased award-winning technologies and business strategies at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) early in May in Houston, Texas. The EIC and Scottish Development International sponsored the UK and Scottish Pavilions.

Companies and Organizations on the Scottish Pavilion demonstrated innovative technologies in key areas, including high pressure and high temperature reservoirs, down-hole and drilling technologies for mature fields, sub-sea technologies and engineering, production optimization, asset integrity and decommissioning.

Attendance at the 2010 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) reached 72,900 as offshore energy industry experts from around the world came together to share technological advances and innovative approaches. The sold-out exhibition was the largest in 28 years, totalling more than 568,000 square feet, up from 557,000 square feet in 2009 and more than 2,400 exhibiting companies from 35 countries. Although this was a record year for OTC, the drilling accident in the Gulf of Mexico affected the mood and the tone of the event.
Report by Colin Clements, Caledonian Industries Ltd
RETURN TO ALMA MATER

Two SPRA members, who were classmates at Edinburgh Napier University, have recently met up after 25 years when they both returned to take up posts at their Alma Mater. Sheila Patrick (nee Cowtan) and Grant Leslie first arrived at Napier in 1980 to join the first year of a brand new course, BSc Applied Chemistry.

Graduation 1985: front: Grant Leslie and Sheila Patrick
In 1985 they both graduated with Honours from the Polymer Science and Technology route which incorporated a sandwich placement year. Sheila headed off to Avon Rubber in Melksham to work on compound and die design in conjunction with Bristol University. She then trained as a secondary teacher at Cambridge and taught for several years at Whitworth High School near Rochdale, before returning to academic research on reactive extrusion at the University of Bradford. Her next University post was with Materials Ireland at the University of Limerick where she was involved with a CRAFT project for a consortium of rotational moulders in four European countries and with developing and implementing a test standard for the protective clothing used in international rugby. She has now returned to Edinburgh to work on a cellulose fibre project in the Centre for Timber Engineering at Edinburgh Napier University. Sheila has also been active in motorsport, including assisting her husband with his rally preparation business.
Grant's career has followed a more industrial route interspersed with periods in academia. After graduation he spent some time in materials testing before his first return to Napier to undertake a research project on smoke suppressants for PVC, in conjunction with Royalite Plastics, balanced with part-time lecturing in polymer technology. This led to a full-time post with Royalite Plastics for the next 7 years, eventually becoming Technical Operations Manager. Grant's expertise in fire performance additives saw him move to Switzerland to Ciba Speciality Chemicals as an Applications Specialist and later as Business Development Manager for N Europe. Following his return to Scotland he again returned to Napier, first as a Materials Consultant in the Advanced Materials Centre and more recently as a Technology Adviser in the EDTC Technology Gateway.
These two case studies, demonstrating the varied and interesting careers that can follow from studying polymer science and technology, are typical of graduates from the BSc Applied Chemistry course at Edinburgh Napier University. Sadly this course was discontinued in the 1990s but the BEng Polymer Engineering and MSc Polymer Engineering programmes at Edinburgh Napier University continue to produce useful graduates with a polymer background.
SPRA AGM 2010

Scottish Plastics and Rubber Association President, Fergus Hardie, was pleased to report to the Annual General Meeting that his first year in office had seen a strengthening of the SPRA, with increased membership, particularly Corporate Membership, a well -attended technical programme, another successful Dinner Dance and the introduction of a schools lecture. During the last twelve months, the SPRA had received two awards from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, the Local Society of the Year award and an Outstanding Service award to the Honorary Secretary. Honorary Treasurer, Mike Barker explained that the apparent deficit in the accounts was distorted by income and payments for the Dinner Dance happening to straddle the end of year period. A more realistic deficit for 2009 was around £1000 but he was able to predict that 2010 would be a healthier year financially. Membership Secretary, Sheena Geddes, announced that membership numbers for 2009 were at the highest level since 2002 and that the figures for 2010 were even more encouraging. Education Officer, Colin Hindle, reported that the SPRA's aim to support teaching of polymers continued to be fulfilled by sponsorship of the Polymer Study Tour and awards of scholarships to students on polymer related courses. In 2009 the SPRA introduced a well attended Schools Lecture, Fantastic Plastic, delivered by Prof Averil Macdonald to around 400 pupils.
The current Officers and Council members were re-elected unopposed and Chris Clark, Rosti Technical Plastics, was elected as a new Council Member.

Fergus Hardie presenting SPRA Corporate Member Certificate to Les Rose, Corporate Member representative from Impact Solutions

Fergus Hardie presenting SPRA Corporate Member Certificate toRalph McNeill, Corporate Member representative from Safeglass (Europe) Ltd
CONTRIBUTIONS

For contributions to future Newsletters, press releases, sponsorship contact:
Charlie Geddes,
143 Lady Nairn Avenue, Kirkcaldy,
Fife KY1 2AT
tel: 01592 651 269;
E-mail :c.geddes@blueyonder.co.uk


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