Specialty polymerS Solvay’s high-performance plastics continue to find a wide variety of opportunities in the healthcare market. The demand for alternatives to metal continues to grow for instruments and devices, in addition to the tray systems that support them. Solvay offers the largest selection of high-performance polymers for the healthcare industry, which includes five unique chemistries....

Plastics are extensively used as a material for orthoses. However, one remaining problem is the ventilation of the orthosis. This is a real problem in countries such as Japan, where it is hot and humid especially in summer. The authors have invented a new orthosis "POROPLAST", which is made of mesh plastic sheets, combined in a cross-like weave. These orthoses provide good ventilation and are v...

with too many details. Indeed, it is the marvelous strateJeffery S. Cox gies that pathogens utilize in their interactions with the Department of Microbiology and Immunology host that makes this topic exciting. One inevitable conG.W. Hooper Foundation sequence of this organization, of course, is that searchUniversity of California, San Francisco ing for information on a particular pathogen of in...

The progressive application of new biodegradable plastics in agriculture calls for improved testing approaches to assure their environmental safety. Full biodegradation (≥90%) prevents accumulation in soil, which is the first tier of testing. The application of specific ecotoxicity tests is the second tier of testing needed to show safety for the soil ecosystem. Soil microbial nitrification is ...

Thermoplastics are becoming a popular material for fabricating microfluidic devices and there is an increasing need for robust surface modification strategies. UV/ozone (UVO) treatment is a simple and effective method for making plastic surfaces more hydrophilic. Prior reports on the stability of UVO-treated plastics are limited to four weeks, which is not sufficient for applications requiring ...

Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) are composed of glass, plastic, non-ferrous metal, ferrous metal, paper, plastic, rubber, and so on. In order to separate glass and plastic among CFLs components, air separation unit is applied using the difference in specific gravity. Since specific gravities of glass, plastic, non-ferrous metals, rubber, etc. were widely spread, it can be separated by the diff...

We investigated microplastics in the digestive tracts of 64 Japanese anchovy (Engraulis japonicus) sampled in Tokyo Bay. Plastic was detected in 49 out of 64 fish (77%), with 2.3 pieces on average and up to 15 pieces per individual. All of the plastics were identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Most were polyethylene (52.0%) or polypropylene (43.3%). Most of the plastics were f...

Lack of degradability and the closing of landfill sites as well as growing water and land pollution problems have led to concern about plastics. With the excessive use of plastics and increasing pressure being placed on capacities available for plastic waste disposal, the need for biodegradable plastics and biodegradation of plastic wastes has assumed increasing importance in the last few years...