It’s the middle of July here in Washington, D.C. and the temperature has been over 100 °F much too much for my liking of late. Thankfully plastics continue to play a critical role in keeping things cool both indoors and out.

From a housing standpoint, plastic building products promote the efficient use of energy and other resources. For example, walls that use structural insulated panels made with expanded polystyrene (EPS) can help homeowners save hundreds of dollars annually on heating and cooling bills. EPS starts out as a plastic pellet and ends up as nearly 95 percent air which is a very effective insulator. Another example is polycarbonate which can be used in windows. In addition to being lightweight and shatter-resistant, polycarbonate has low thermal conductivity, which can help to reduce heating and cooling costs. And what about plastic house wrap technology? Plastic house wrap technology reduces the infiltration of outside air and helps to drastically reduce the energy required to heat or cool the home. So with these technologies (and, of course, air conditioners and fans  — which have plenty of plastic parts) one can keep cool indoors.

When outdoors, what you wear can make a difference. I’m partial to the clothing that uses wicking technologyto keep you cool. Traditional cotton clothing tends to soak up and retain sweat, making the wearer unable to cool themselves off properly and making the garment heavier. Wicking technology utilizes fabrics that move sweat away from the skin to the outer surface of the fabric, where it evaporates. Many of these fabrics are made out of polyester fibers and often can be recycled through program’s such as the Common Threads Recycling Program.

Getting in the water is, of course, a favorite way to keep cool in the summer. Most bathing suits are made from plastic materials such as polyester, nylon and Lycra (or Spandex). Of course, we have blogged here before about the uproar in competitive swimming circles concerning new high tech suits made from polyurethane.

In addition, many above ground pools and most inflatable wading pools are made from some combination of PVC (which has excellent resistance to damage via abrasion, impact and sunlight), polypropylene and polyester mesh. Backyard pools also depend on flexible, durable and easy-to-clean vinyl liners to keep their inner surfaces smooth on feet and protected from sunlight, abrasion and water-treatment chemicals. Swimming pools with vinyl and polypropylene covers bring safety and peace of mind to pool owners with very small children. Even diving boards are usually covered with polyurethane epoxy resin paint that creates a non-skid surface to prevent dangerous slips.

So whether you are indoors or out, plastics play an important role in making these hot days more bearable.

Photo courtesy of Infrogmation of New Orleans

How do you move forward, improve and grow while simultaneously defending against unfounded efforts by others to impede those very advancements? That was the nature of the presentations on the second day of SPI’s Flexible Vinyl Products 21st Compounding Conference, as they alternated between  discussions of cutting-edge research, the latest market information and new tools to improve products on one hand, and strategies to negotiate product de-selection initiatives on the other.

Bill Hall, who chairs the environmental law practice at Winston & Strawn, presented a range of measures to employ in order to discourage product de-selection, and reminded attendees of the famous phrase of his former basketball coach, the late great Jim Valvano: “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” Hall played basketball under Valvano at Bucknell Univesrsity, prior to Valvano winning the NCAA national championship as the coach of North Carolina State University in a highly memorable last-second upset victory in 1983.

Later in the day, members of the ACC Phthalate Ester Panel exposed several anti-phthalate studies and news reports as myths using a glaring spotlight of reality in the form of government  statistics and common sense conclusions drawn by a variety of independent experts. The panel members also provided a regulatory and legislative update as well as a report on recent media trends.

Bill Carroll spoke to attendees about a few things, including his work as a member of California’s Green Chemistry Initiative Science Advisory Panel. The Green Chemistry program is a highly complex, some might say “convoluted,” process to remove or reduce chemicals deemed hazardous from products sold in California. Carroll, vice president, industry issues for Occidental Chemical Corporation, an an adjunct professor of chemistry at Indiana University, also engaged conference attendees in a discussion about the future of the flexible vinyl industry, asking, “Where will we be in 10 years? Where do we go from here?” The ensuing conversation swung from the need for greater innovation, to the need to be less risk-averse when it comes to investing  financial resources in compelling opportunities, and the possibility of the federal government setting policies that make the United States a friendlier place to do manufacturuing business.

But in addition to sessions on how to deal with negative external challenges, attendees also heard from speakers who brought expertise to the table that would help them do their jobs better and improve their vinyl products. Jim Roberts of BYK-Gardner, for example, spoke about how to best measure color, gloss (the amount of light reflected off a surface), haze, clarity and other physical properties of vinyl and its products. This is particularly important in today’s manufacturing world where one part of a product may be made in the United States as others are being made at other plants around the world. When they come together, they need to be exactly alike. Luckily, as I learned, there are lab and production line tools like the “Micro-Gloss” and “Spectro-Guide.”

Toward the end of the day, industry lion and Lord of the Rings enthusiast Dean Finney, retired from Eastman Chemical Company and now almost set to retire from Rivendell Consultants, paraphrased the Tolkien character Aragorn in addressing his embattled flexible vinyl colleagues: “Success does not belong to one man but to all. Let us together rebuild this world that we may share in the days of peace.”

I’m starting out this week in a world of flexible vinyl. Actually, I’m at the Lansdowne Conference Center in Virginia where the flexible vinyl products world is convening July 11-13 for the preeminent conference for the vinyl industry: SPI’s Flexible Vinyl Products 21st Annual Compounding Conference. Combining business and technical programming, this event has attracted more than 125 attendees who will hear presentations from technical experts conducting cutting-edge research, business leaders providing strategy and market guidance and legislative and regulatory speakers with the latest from the nation’s capital and around the world.

And there’s some breaking news already! I had the opportunity to sit in on the SPI Flexible Vinyl Products Committee’s  Executive Committee Meeting this morning and a very exciting development came about concerning NPE2012. But more on that below…

This week’s conference is hosted by SPI’s Flexible Vinyl Products Committee (FVPC), part of the association’s Material Suppliers Council. The FVPC works for the benefit of all companies within the flexible vinyl industry regardless of end market application – and, because of the material’s many advantages, that is an enormous amount of applications!  Because flexible vinyl is inexpensive, durable, safe, easily processed and recyclable, it is appealing to product manufacturers and ideally suited to myriad uses.  From construction (such as flooring and roofing) to life-saving medical products (such as blood/intravenous fluid bags, cardiac catheters, endotracheal tubing) to packaging (food wrap, container lids) to wire and cable and a vast variety of automotive uses, flexible vinyl makes modern life better.

Topics to be presented and discussed here in Virginia over the next two days include the latest research on new materials, optimizing product quality using new lab tools, global updates concerning the resin and plasticizer markets, and presentations concerning product de-selection issues and the ways in which science and statistics are used (and sometimes abused) by the media. Rebecca Obniski, a chemistry and music double-major at the College of William and Mary will present a paper on “New Metal-Based Smoke Suppressants and Fire Retardants for Flexible PVC.”  Veteran industry insider William Carroll, vice president for industry issues, Occidental Chemical Company, will reflect on his experiences in the plastics industry and his perspective on the future.  A number of  SPI staff experts will be on hand to deliver the latest news on the legislative front, REACH and Walmart’s retailer sustainability initiatives.

Speaking of news, this morning the FVPC Executive Committee preliminarily signed off on having a pavilion devoted to flexible vinyl products at NPE2012 in Orlando. Similar to successful specialty pavilions staged at NPE2009 that were devoted to fluoropolymers, thermoformers and TPE elastomers,  an “FVP World” pavilion would provide the flexible vinyl products community with a platform to discuss advancements in technology, educate participants and highlight member companies and organizations in a unified and organized format.  “FVP World” would be part of  NPE Technology Central in the Orange County Convention Center’s South Hall.  At this morning’s meeting, SPI President Bill Carteaux brought up this idea to FVPC leadership, saying, “We invite flexible vinyl products companies to host FVP World at NPE2012, and provide this opportunity to your members, suppliers and their customers to see and hear what’s new in flexible vinyl.” Needless to say, the FVPC Executive Committee liked the idea! Stay tuned for more details.

A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting in which a presenter discussed our nation’s need to strive for a more sustainable future. Arguing that sustainability is not a new concept, the presenter showed an image of a glass bottle house located in the Calico Ghost Town, and noted that we need to recapture the ingenuity of the past in order to essentially save the world.

According to this web site devoted to bottle houses, it is unclear whether the Calico Bottle House was created in Calico, brought there from another ghost town, or is actually just a modern reproduction. But it is generally understood that short of building materials, early mining camp settlers made their shelters out of whatever they could — including discarded bottles from the town’s saloon. 

Although I would argue that the ingenuity of the past was often more of an exercise in survival rather than sustainability, I still appreciated the speaker’s illustration and would make the case that we are already replicating those triumphs. Whether it is transforming a plastic bag into low-maintenance fencing, a plastic soda bottle into the 111 Navy Chair, or any of the recycled plastic products we’ve spotlighted on this blog, our society continues to recycle and re-purpose items that would otherwise end up in the landfill.

In fact, a recent article describes what I consider the next generation of the glass bottle house, the EcoArk. Commissioned by the Far Eastern Group for the 2010 Taipei International Expo, this 278’ X 131’ X 85’ structure is constructed of roughly 1.8 million recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. Using the Polli-Brick, a recycled polymer architecture brick developed by Hymini, these interlocking bricks are supposedly strong enough to withstand storms or earthquakes and yet so easy to disassemble, that the EcoArk is expected to be reassembled elsewhere after the Expo.  Can you see it at NPE2012?

Yet beyond its strength and interesting honeycomb look, the Polli-Brick is  designed to offer exquisite thermal and sound insulation, and its translucent design will not only allow natural light to filter through the material, but also offer the consumer the ability to use the brick for creative lighting. Oh, and did I mention the cost? Arthur Huang, the engineer behind the EcoArk, estimated that his building  is one-third less expensive than if it had been constructed using conventional methods.

While I highly doubt that architects will embrace the Polli-Brick, at least in the near term, I do believe that it is one impressive step towards developing a more sustainable nation.

Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly one to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. Over the past several years the field of nanotechnology has continued to evolve at a rapid pace. As a follow-up to my last nanotechnology blog, I wanted to update readers about the latest activities of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is the program established in fiscal year 2001 to coordinate Federal nanotechnology research and development here in the U.S.  Today the NNI consists of the individual and cooperative nanotechnology-related activities of 25 federal agencies with a range of research and regulatory roles and responsibilities. The NNI as a program does not fund research; however, it informs and influences the Federal budget and planning processes through its member agencies.

In terms of nanotechnology funding, the total investment by NNI member agencies for 2011 is nearly $1.8 billion for nanotechnology R&D. According to the recently issued report entitled NNI Supplement to the President’s 2011 Budget, the document highlights Nanotechnology Signature Initiatives to accelerate nanotechnology development in support of the President’s priorities and innovation strategy. NNI member agencies identified areas for these initiatives ripe for significant advances through close and targeted program-level interagency collaboration.

You may be wondering “how I can provide my input as to what the NNI and the related agencies plan next in regards to nanotechnology?” I highly encourage you to attend the NNI’s Strategic Planning Stakeholder Workshop which will be held July 13-14 in Arlington, Va.  The goals of this event are to:

1. Bring together those who are new to nanoscale science, engineering and technology as well as those familiar with the NNI; 
2. Obtain stakeholder input regarding the goals and objectives of an updated NNI Strategic Plan; and 
3. Gather suggestions to the U.S. Government interagency task force that is drafting the new plan. Let your voice be heard!

In addition, in order to help members keep up-to-date on the various activities of the NNI and other nanotechnology organizations around the globe, I recommend that they become part of SPI’s Nanotechnology Group. The group’s mission is to provide a forum for nanotechnology resin and additive suppliers, processors and equipment suppliers within SPI to address nanotechnology issues, activities and opportunities related to the plastics industry. Also to learn more about nanotechnology and the plastics industry you can listen to SPI’s recent “Business of Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology 101” webinar. 

Nanotechnology is an exciting and evolutionary area. In my opinion, big changes continue to occur in the small world of nanotechnology.