President’s Message

Dear SPE-STX Members, 

The Polyolefin Conference 2020 held February 23rd thru 26th was a great success and attended by many of our local members and others throughout the world. We had several attendees and exhibitors prohibited to travel to the USA due to the covid-19 virus pandemic and despite those not able to attend, we had attended at or near record levels. There many lots of positive feedback about the content and trade show, and our committee will make further improvements to the conference experience. If interested review details of the event on our web site at www.spe-stx.org.

With the uncertainly of people attending events due to the covid-19 pandemic, events such as our annual Astros baseball game come into question. We are investigating other events that our members could participate however remotely. We will keep you posted on any that develop.

I’d like to welcome those new members that have recently joined SPE-STX and look forward to having these new members be involved in the local section or with Polyolefins 2021. I also want to thank all our volunteers that coordinated and ran the conference. Without these volunteers SPE-STX would not be able to raise the funds we use for scholarships to our Texas Universities and Colleges.

The SPE-STX is looking to operate additional conferences to raise funds and will provide ample opportunity for members to become involved. For those interested in Plastics in Oil and Gas applications or for Agriculture watch for more details in the next couple of months.

Sincerely,
Peter Lauzon, President

The International Polyolefins Conference 2020 Sunday Tutorials were well attended.

POC Student Dinner

The student dinner provided time for students to hear from each other in their studies of polyolefins-related fields and conversations with some of our section leaders.

Conference Chair, Fernando Cevallos Candau, W.R. Grace, starts off this year's conference

The Polyolefins Conference Plenary Monitors, Clifford Lee and Luyi Sun, annouced the distingished speakers of the day. Every guest speakers had an attentive audience and answered their questions after summation.

Lobby contruction required an innovative solutions for exhibitors executed by Renée Colyer, J.M. Huber Corporation, and Exhibit Chair Kevin Alexander, KWA-Tech, Inc.

The traffic of attendees flowed flawlessly for the exhibitors.

Welcoming Reception Sponsored by PMC

Student Awards Luncheon

2020 International Polyolefins Conference Scholarship Winners:

Given by South Texas Section

Given by Flexible Packaging Division

Given by Polymers Modifiers & Additives Division

Given by ThermoPlastic Materials & Foams Division

2020 International Polyolefins Conference Poster Contest Winners:

Tuesday ends with a Marching Band

High Density Polyethylene Blends for Additive Manufacturing

Craig F. Gorin, Daniel L. Dermody, Scott T. Matteucci, Joseph Harris, Paul R. Vlasak, The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI Jun Li, Sanjib Biswas, Nathan Wilmot, The Dow Chemical Company, Lake Jackson, TX

Abstract

High density polyethylene is challenging to use in standard additive manufacturing methods today, but would provide desirable properties such as chemical resistance, lightweighting, and durability to enable applications beyond prototyping. In this work, we describe high density polyethylene blends with highly branched polyethylene or polyethylene copolymers that improve adhesion and reduce warpage, significantly improving printability in standard filament extrusion 3D-printing methods.

Read More...

South Texas SPE 2019-2020 Board Meeting

Minutes of the Meeting of the South Texas Board of the Society of Plastics Engineers – 3/09/2020

The SPE-STX BOD meeting was held by phone conference.

Attendees

Opening

Peter Lauzon opened the Board meeting at 6:05 PM.

Approval of Minutes

Tom Walsh moved to accept the minutes of the February meeting as published. Steve King seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

Polyolefins Conference 2020

Tom Walsh reported on the analysis conducted on the recent 2020 International Conference on Polyolefins. The report is attached. Based on the analysis provided, there was an extended discussion about the structure and value proposition of the Conference. Board members made the following comments:

• The Conference is dominated by additive suppliers, equipment suppliers and service companies to the polyolefin industry.
  
• While Resin Manufacturers do send attendees, moderators, speakers and committee members, they are not supporting the conference with exhibits or sponsorships.
  
• We are not getting converters/manufacturers to attend the conference. What do we need to do to attract more converters/manufacturers?
  
• Converters want to hear about new products, new process, new fabrications.
  
• In order to attract converters as well as resin manufacturers, we would need to develop session on extrusion processing, pelletizing, material handling, conveying systems, packaging, handling warehousing, etc.
  
• New technology sessions on compounding and extrusion processing were offered in the past and the conference had multiple exhibits from compounding equipment manufacturers. We should look at sessions of this type again.
  
• The Tutorial Session was originally intended as introductory sessions for new engineers, converters and non-technical attendees. It is no longer operating in that sense. It was suggested to focus the tutorial on compounding/finishing extrusion and other material handling topics.
  
• The South Texas Section needs to become more involved in the Program organization. We need to recruit session organizers for the conference as well as organizing committee volunteers.
  
• It was asked if we are late to the market with our publicity for the conference. If we developed the Theme for the Conference and an initial program for the Plenary Session could we start publicity earlier.
  
• It was noted that larger organizations usually have their annual budgets in place in October. Our publicity needs to be in place in August/September so attendees can start planning for the next conference.
  
• Sustainability is a hot topic and we have now concentrated on it for the 2020 conference. We need an early focus on the Theme for the next conference.
  
• It was discussed that Headquarters has put out a lot of publicity for ANTEC but nowhere near that amount for the Polyolefins Conference.
  
• It was mentioned that social media has a lot of discussions on extrusion, converters and extruder topics.
  
• It was discussed that the current Coronavirus crisis point out how lucky our timing for the current conference was. ExxonMobil reportedly changed their policy during the week of our conference prohibiting attendance at large conferences. If this crisis had developed earlier, we would have had significant problems and might have led to the cancellation of the conference. This would have had a catastrophic economic impact of the South Texas Section. We need keep this in mind for future conferences.
  
• Peter Lauzon prepared and circulated a survey to the exhibitors and has just sent out a survey to the attendees. He will report on these surveys at the next meeting.

Next Meeting

The second Monday in April (4/13/2020)

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 6:58 PM.

Observations from the 2020 International Conference on Polyolefins

Plastics Information: Check It Out

Houston Public LibraryThe Houston Public Library on McKinney has resources on plastics and polymers. Check out their catalog. If you are not near the McKinney location, you can arrange to pick up your books at your local branch.

The Fondren Library at Rice University has the most complete collection of books on plastics and polymers. This is also a prime resource for patent and trademark information, as well as other US Government documents. You cannot check out books there unless you join Fondren Library [$50], but you can arrange for books to be sent to your library by inter-library loan. Use their catalog.

The next best place to browse is at the MD Anderson Library at the University of Houston central campus. South Texas Section has donated many plastics books to this library. If you plan ahead, you can get a TexShare library card from a library where you are a member, which will allow you to check out books from any U of H library. Their catalog is here.

Calendar of Events

Board of Directors

Need to contact one of us?

Web Content/Section Coordinator

Janell Helton
Houston, TX 77084
713-503-6729
jdhelton@comcast.net