Only 23% of the Manufacturing industry is made up of Women. Here at Colloids, we are advocates of diversity & making sure every woman has a platform to become strong managers in the industry. We want to honour International Women’s Day by changing the “glass ceiling” that prevents women from reaching senior positions.

Nikki Thompson, Senior HR Manager at Colloids, hosted a webinar for all the women at Colloids, along with our Commercial Director, Andre Toczek. She discussed the bias that woman face in work & explained the best practice to handle these situations.

Nikki said “We recognise & support that women are leading the way and making a difference. In 2022, we are making a commitment to make one change, and that is to #BreaktheBias at work.”

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Russell Livesey, CEO Colloids Limited said “After opening our first factory in China this is an exciting milestone in our continued growth in the region and long-term commitment to developing Masterbatches for technical high-end projects and it is a credit to our Chinese team that they have achieved the growth require to generate revenues required to make this further investment in such a short period.”

Colloids China is headed up by General Manager Dr. Craig MacDougall and has experienced exceptional growth in the past few years, as it continues to supply the automotive and electronic industries in Asia with high-performance engineering masterbatches whilst maintaining its longstanding commitment to quality and service.  Dr. MacDougall said “expanding our operation in Changshu provides Colloids with an excellent platform for our future growth in China and Asia Pacific.  The additional investment in CEDZ (Changshu Economic Development Zone) means we can expand our operation quickly and efficiently while maintaining exceptionally high service levels to our customers.”

Colloids masterbatch manufacturing plant and R & D facilities started their operations in China in 2016 and are located in Changshu, a jurisdiction of Suzhou in Jiangsu province, about two hours northwest of Shanghai. Its location is advantageous as it allows Colloids to grow and serve its customer base in China and the APAC region.

Colloids are very grateful for the cooperation and relationships it has built with the local community and relevant government departments enabling mutual opportunities to develop.

Colloids Plastic (Suzhou)Co.Ltd is IATF 16949:2016 certified as a leading supplier to the automotive industry as well as holding ISO9001 certification.

Colloids Plastic (Suzhou) Co.Ltd team is looking forward to welcoming contacts new and old to our booth.  The event will take place on 13-16 April 2021, at the Shenzen World Exhibition Convention Centre. You can find Colloids’ booth, located in (Hall 16) at 16E39.

The post Colloids Plastic (Suzhou) Co.Ltd Acquires A New Site and Expands Capacity appeared first on Colloids.

Colloids China will be exhibiting this year at Chinaplas 2021. The event will take place on 13-16 April 2021, at the Shenzen World Exhibition Convention Centre.

Colloids China has experienced exceptional growth in the past few years, as it continues to supply the market in Asia with high-quality engineering masterbatches with a focus on ultra-high-temperature polymers.

Come and visit  Colloids at our booth 16E39

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A main focus for Colloids in 2020 is recognising women’s achievements and taking action for equality. In reality, the biggest obstacle that woman face is the very first steps to become a manager. We want to honour International Women’s Day by changing the “glass ceiling” that prevents women from reaching senior positions, especially in the manufacturing industry.

Here at Colloids, we are advocates of all employees feeling respected and given fair and equal opportunities for personal development and growth within the workplace. We’re working towards a fair and inclusive culture, allowing women and underrepresented groups to thrive and be recognised.

Colloids’ HR Department is dedicated to introducing improvements throughout the company, enabling women to have a platform to become strong managers in the manufacturing industry. From 8^th March, four of our female employees will be working in three of our predominantly male departments: Engineering, Warehousing and Production. This will allow them to gain experience in historically male dominated fields, while also raising their profiles in the industry.

Managers support, sponsorship, impartial hiring and promotional practices are key elements in creating a desired workplace.  Combining these elements will allow us to deliver opportunity and fairness to all employees, as well as giving people who are wanting to progress the support to do so.

Nikki Thompson, Head of HR at Colloids, states “I want us to be transparent about wanting to make this change. This can only happen by looking at how many women we employ, how many of those women are in senior positions and are women in equivalent roles to men paid equally. If we want to be serious about promoting female equality in the workplace, we will have to be clear about our desire to address these questions, following up with shared experiences and action points. I want to encourage women to make the leap and have the confidence to thrive in a male dominated environment. What we teach young girls and women about who they are and how they can contribute starts early, with the vision of taking this initiative to schools within the local area”.

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Plastic packaging generally has brought important innovations in keeping food fresh and reducing wastage

It is lightweight, strong and makes a positive contribution to reducing fuel use and emissions by being easier to transport than alternatives.

If food wastage were a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitting in the world. Food waste in developing countries where packaging is not used effectively can be extremely high, with food loss at production and transport accounting for two thirds of global food waste. Source: The British Plastics Federation.

Historically, black packaging has been considered to indicate quality. Products packaged in black give an aura of premium quality. It has also been popular with brands seeking an aesthetic contrast to fresh foods such as tomatoes, green vegetables, salads and in some instances fresh meat and fish. Black plastic trays have also been favoured for convenience foods. The feeling has been that displayed in this way, the product becomes more attractive to the consumer. This is why black plastic food trays have been so widely used by suppliers to supermarkets and stores.

But black plastic has not just been used in packaging. Due to its low cost, dense colouring and masking properties which allows off cuts of other colours to be mixed together and manufactured into black items, it has also been useful for horticultural products such as flower pots and seed trays which are produced in great volumes.

However, media coverage has made it widely recognised that black plastic packaging is not recyclable. But, this is not the whole story. In fact, black plastics that use the black pigment Carbon Black as a source of their colour are not recycled because the automatic detection systems utilised by the Materials Recycling Facilities are unable to distinguish the types of polymer from which they are made. They are seen as contaminates and generally end up being sent to landfill or for incineration. Estimates suggest that one million tonnes of black plastic is sent to landfill every year.

In order for recycling to operate in an efficient and effective way automation is employed as much as possible. The most widely used technology for the sorting of different types of plastics, used by MRF’s (Material Recovery Facilities) and PRF’s (Plastics Recovery Facilities) is near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, which provides detection of the different plastics types. NIR sensors are capable of accurately classifying waste made from different plastics such as PET, PP and PS. Materials on a conveyor are fed beneath an infrared beam which identifies the plastic type by its near infrared signature. Once identified compressed air nozzles are triggered, which separate the materials programmed into the machine.

This categorisation of plastics is essential to ensure that the resulting recycled material is commercially viable for processors to use. However, a large amount of these potentially recyclable objects cannot be classified by the NIR systems. The reason being that they contain the colour pigment carbon black that is an excellent infra-red absorber and therefore these items pass undetected by the sorting systems. This is because the infra-red beam does not bounce back to give an identification. So these potentially recyclable waste products are overlooked and end up in landfill.

The use of NIR Detectable masterbatch (black colour pigment) in products not only means that the waste products could be recycled using existing systems. It opens up the possibility to utilise the correctly identified reclaimed material in coloured Jazz streams without causing contamination.

It is clear that a fully identifiable and recyclable alternative to allow black plastics to be used would be highly beneficial for brands and recyclers alike.

The UK Plastics Pact is a collaborative initiative, from WRAP, aimed to create a circular economy for plastics. Members of the Pact using black plastic are requested to use detectable black pigments by the end of 2019 enabling waste management companies to be able sort it for recycling. It has already been announced that consumer goods brand Unilever will be using a detectable black pigment in their HDPE (high density polyethylene) bottles used by two of their brands. Major UK retailers Tesco, Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s are collaborating with leading UK waste re-processor Viridor and Faerch UK Ltd, a packaging specialist to provide a circular economy solution for black plastic. Source: WRAP

Addressing the recyclability of black plastic packaging, Colloids expert team have developed two innovative NIR-Detectable black masterbatch pigments suitable for black PET food trays and for black PP or PE food trays. These black pigments are totally identifiable by the NIR classification systems and meet the EC AP (89)1 European Resolution on the use of colourants in plastic materials coming into contact with food. Colloids NIR PP or PE grade has the additional benefit that it is also FDA approved. They are formulated for use with conventional lines and processes for plastic product production.

Our development team are happy to collaborate on individual requirements to meet your Circular Economy goals. You can learn more about Colloids NIR solutions here: https://colloids.com/black-plastic-packaging-recycling-nir

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Phase 1 of this collaborative project was successfully completed within 12 months. Phase 2, which is about to start, is expected to be a three to four year research project. For this next phase, Colloids is funding and supporting a full time Ph.D. researcher who will be based at University of Manchester with the Advanced Nanomaterials Group led by Dr. Mark A. Bissett and Professor Ian A. Kinloch. The Ph.D. researcher will also be working with and supervised by key Colloids’ R & D people involved in the project.

The potential benefits of 2D thermoplastic nanocomposites have long been recognized. The project team will investigate the applicability of nanocomposites based on graphene and other two-dimensional (2D) materials to a broad range of thermoplastic materials, including polyolefins, polyamides and polyesters, and to understand how mechanical, thermal, electrical, rheological and gas-barrier properties (among others) are affected by the production process and by the materials used.  The main goal of this collaborative Ph.D. research project is to develop and upscale new polymer-graphene nanocomposites with enhanced properties and multifunctional capabilities that are not currently available. Key target markets for ‘next generation’ graphene nanocomposite Colloids products include automotive, aerospace, electronics and electrical.

As the research project is through Graphene@Manchester, the collaborative project team benefits from access to the extensive graphene research facilities at The University of Manchester: the National Graphene Institute (NGI), the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC), and the Henry Royce Institute. The University of Manchester is a globally recognized centre of excellence for cutting edge graphene research, building upon the published work by Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for isolating, characterising and contacting ground-breaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.

Colloids Group is exhibiting with parent company, TOSAF Group Ltd. (Booth# Hall 8a / D01) at the K’19 Plastics & Rubber exhibition in Dusseldorf, Germany, which runs from 16-23 October 2019. Show visitors from companies interested in the graphene nanocomposites collaborative project can speak with technical people from the Colloids’ team who will be at the show.

About Colloids Group

Colloids products are used in a wide range of plastic applications in automotive, medical, industrial, E & E, agricultural, construction, pipes, geosynthetics, consumer goods and packaging markets. Colloids Group manufacturing sites operate to ISO 9001 quality standards, with the main UK site at Knowsley also being ISO 14001 accredited. Both Colloids Liverpool and Colloids China are IATF 16949:2016 automotive quality management certified.

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K 2019 is the ideal show for Colloids to showcase its latest specialty masterbatch products and to officially launch its expanded range of T-TEC^® high performance polymer masterbatches. New T-TEC grades are now availability in Signal Warning Orange (RAL 2003) for producing high voltage (HV) automotive components; key applications include under the bonnet electrical components, conduits and charging plug units for electric vehicles and hybrids.

Show visitors to the Tosaf Group stand will be able to meet with commercial and technical people from the Colloids’ team and find out more about all the latest in-house R & D product innovations:

T-TEC High Performance Engineering Polymer Masterbatches and Compounds

Colloids’ T-TEC high performance masterbatches and compounds are formulated using specially selected high temperature pigments and engineering polymer carrier systems based on PPS, PPSU, PPA and PEEK. T-TEC masterbatches can withstand continuous operating temperatures in excess of 120^oC and multiple heat histories at temperatures above 350 ^oC. Depending on the polymer grade, Colloids will supply a high-temperature masterbatch in standard blue, red, green, orange, brown, grey and black, as well as customer bespoke colours and formulations.

The newly expanded T-TEC range is now available in Signal Warning Orange (RAL 2003) for PEEK, PPSU, PSU, PEI, PA10T, PA12, PBT, PA6T and PA66 engineering polymers. This latest product development is primarily to offer car makers masterbatch grade options for producing high voltage (HV) automotive components, as Signal Warning Orange is the regulation colour specified by OEMs for high voltage cable and connector applications in a battery-electric vehicle (BEV), hybrid (HEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).

The complete T-TEC masterbatch range has over 30 grades, based on a proprietary universal carrier as well as polymer specific grades, available in black and RAL/Pantone colours. Automotive, electrical and electronics (E&E), industrial and medical equipment are key application markets.

New Low VOC Black Masterbatch for Automotive Interior PP Foams

Polypropylene (PP) foams used in automotive interiors must meet stringent volatile organic compound (VOC) emission requirements to minimize fogging and odour levels in new vehicles. Colloids new low VOC black masterbatch has been tested according to VDA 278 for automotive materials and meets leading global automakers’ emissions criteria for volatiles.

New Permanent Laser Marking Compatible Masterbatch Range for Plastics

Colloids’ L-TEC® laser marking compatible masterbatch range enables plastic components to be permanently laser marked or etched with key product information and branding in either a light or dark mark instead of ink printing or engraving; text, numbers, QR and bar codes, images and logos can be clearly laser marked on a plastic part. The L-TEC laser marking range is available for a wide range of polymers in virtually any colour or effect, including metallic and pearlescent. Genuine automotive plastic parts can be permanently marked to protect against counterfeiting. Consumer products packaging, such as for food, drinks and cosmetics, also benefit from laser marking to add branding and aesthetic enhancements.

High UV Black Masterbatch for Exposed PE Agricultural Irrigation Drip Systems

Colloids has added a high UV protection black masterbatch to the range for the high speed extrusion of black polyethylene (PE) products that need to cope with prolonged exposure to direct sunlight. This innovative UV black masterbatch product was developed by Colloids’ R & D team in response to demand from leading manufacturers of overground ‘drip design’ pipe, tape and lay-flat tubing crop irrigation systems for the agricultural market. To maximize processing and UV resistance performance, the formulation combines optimized carrier and anti-oxidant systems with a high quality carbon black pigment.

The major competitive advantage for drip irrigation producers using Colloids’ PE compatible UV black masterbatch is that they can offer their customers a cost effectively produced drip irrigation system that is expected to last a minimum of two growing seasons in a temperate climate.

Colloids ‘Smooth’ Special Effect Colour Masterbatches

In response to market demand from producers of consumer goods and packaging, Colloids expanded its ‘bespoke’ special effect colour service offering. Colloids can now produce to order metallic, pearlescent, glitter, speckled, marble effects and fluorescent special effect masterbatch options. To meet the highest aesthetics and quality standards, Colloids ‘Smooth’ masterbatches are supplied to order for special effect colours;  custom made ‘smooth’ masterbatch grades have proved to significantly reduce quality issues such as ‘die drool’ and extrusion ‘drag lines’, particularly with pearlescent colours. This enabling the production of high quality parts with a superior surface finish in shorter cycle times, so also improving productivity.

All products developed by Colloids provide added value processing benefits, such as higher throughput rates, along with improved quality and functional performance. As well as automotive, medical, industrial and E&E, Colloids products are also used in a wide range of plastic applications in agricultural, construction, pipes, geosynthetics, consumer goods and packaging markets.

Colloids Group manufacturing sites operate to ISO 9001 quality standards, with the main UK site at Knowsley also being ISO 14001 accredited. Both Colloids Knowsley and Colloids China are IATF 16949:2016 automotive quality management certified.

[ T-TEC^® and  L-TEC^® are registered trademarks of Colloids Ltd.  ]

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You can read the full article below or on the Research Outreach website.

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