The latest issue of Sustainable Plastics is now available to subscribers on our site. To view, click here.
And with the upcoming Fakuma in mind, the focus in this edition is on, amongst other things, injection moulding.
Injection moulding machines are huge. Even the small-sized ones are fairly hefty, to say the least.
To the uninitiated, they often seem oddly out of proportion to the size of the product being moulded.
Yet make no mistake: when these machines were first invented - back in the nineteenth century - they came as a revelation. Initially consisting of a plunger in a heated cylinder, they worked much like a hypodermic needle: by depressing the plunger, celluloid - at that time the only plastic that had been invented - could be injected into a mould. And suddenly, it was possible to mass produce such useful, everyday items as buttons, combs, collar stays, and a host of other items.
Much later, in 1946, the first screw injection machines appeared, giving processors more precise control over the speed of injection and the quality of articles produced. Different types of plastics came onto the market, broadening the range of products able to be moulded. The new, modern machines also allowed processors to mix the material before injection, making it possible to add coloured or even recycled plastic to virgin material before being injected.
Whenever Fakuma rolls around, I’m always reminded of just how fast injection moulding has developed over the past decades. Partly, I think because the very origins of this show are rooted in machinery innovations and developments - it’s what the -MA in the name stands for, after all - and partly because machinery still plays such a preponderant role in Friedrichshafen.
A noticeable development this year is the number of electric machines at the show and the focus machine manufacturers are placing on them.
For years, hydraulic injection moulding machines were the only option available. Then, in the 1980s, various companies in Japan - think Toyo, Niigata, Nissei - introduced a new technology: the all-electric injection moulding machine.
Despite offering advantages, such as energy efficiency, precision and speed, over hydraulic machines, they were slow to catch on in this part of the world. Unfamiliarity with the technology combined with the substantially higher costs of an electric machine meant that many converters were simply unwilling to make the investment, despite the possible benefits.
And much like the US president who, confronted with the invention of the telephone said: “Yes, it is all very remarkable: but who in the world would ever want to use one of them?”, it was possible even in 2003 for the CEO of a well-reputed European machine manufacturer to confidently remark that in his view, electric technology would never take off, because it was too ‘foreign’.
Well.
Since then, the world has weathered a financial crisis, a global pandemic, an energy crisis - and seen the emergence of a completely new sustainability trend. And in the world of injection moulding, a major marker of this is the shift from hydraulic machines to all-electric moulding.
Come see for yourself in Friedrichshafen!