Extrusion
Extrusion
Summary
Plastics extrusion is a high-volume manufacturing process in which raw plastic is melted and formed into a continuous profile. Extrusion produces items such as pipe/tubing, weatherstripping, fencing, deck railings, window frames, plastic films and sheeting, thermoplastic coatings, and wire insulation.
This process starts by feeding plastic material (pellets, granules, flakes or powders) from a hopper into the barrel of the extruder. The material is gradually melted by the mechanical energy generated by turning screws and by heaters arranged along the barrel. The molten polymer is then forced into a die, which shapes the polymer into a shape that hardens during cooling.
Typical materials that are used in extrusion include polyethylene (PE), polypropylene, acrylic, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polycarbonate.
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- Recyclable: Customers' trim is 100% recyclable
- Recycled Content: Substrates can be designed to integrate 100% recycled content for a closed loop product.
- Closed Loop: Customers' trim recycled back into a substrate for use in a similar product, avoding landfill or downcycling
- Supply Chain Sustainability: We repurchase trim from our customers' locations across the United States
- Production Optimization: By repurposing production trim back into structures, we save energy and minimze waste
- Economical: Substrates are designed to meet customers' performance, aesthetic, and cost expectations
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Citations, attribution, and content source(s) for this article
(adapted from) Wikipedia contributors, "Plastic extrusion," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plastic_extrusion&oldid=1088991233 (accessed August 13, 2022).
Used with permission under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-SA 3.0)