Industry News
to Zschimmer & Schwarz in Heilbronn,
Germany. The transaction was effective on March 31st, 2009 and includes
the transfer of Münzing’s complete line
of leather auxiliaries and all customer
relationships.
LYONDELLBASELL TO REDUCE
LDPE PRODUCTION IN FRANCE
LyondellBasell Industries announced
a project to cease the production of low
density polyethylene (LDPE) at Fos-sur-Mer, France. The unit has been
partially idled since March and the
company has started the employee
consultation process regarding a project to shut down the unit permanently.
The plant currently has approximately
80 permanent employees.
“Taking into account the current
market environment and our future
projections our conclusion is that this
plant is no longer economically viable.
We are able to meet projected customer
demand for LDPE with product supplied from our other LDPE facilities,”
said Richard Roudeix, LyondellBasell’s
vcice president for polyethylene in
Europe.
LyondellBasell said that LDPE production activities in France will be
focused on the company’s world-scale
plant located at Berre, France.
ATLAS LAUNCHES NEW DEVICE
Atlas Material Testing Technology has
introduced its latest technology for
ultra-accelerated exposure testing. This
new outdoor testing device can provide
approximately 63 years of South
Florida UV radiation exposure in a single year. Atlas developed this new solar
concentrator technology in partnership
with the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) and the Russian
Institute of Laser Optical Technology
(ILOT) under a U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) program.
Similar in concept to Atlas’ moderately accelerated EMMA technology, the
ultra-accelerated device tracks the sun
while concentrating reflected sunlight
on test specimens mounted in a target
area. However, the new patented mirror
system used in the ultra-accelerated
concentrator has very high reflectance
in the UV and near visible wave length
ranges while attenuating reflectance in
the longer wavelength visible and IR
portions of the solar spectrum. This
technology allows for very high concentrations of UV energy without excessive
heating of test samples.
