19 April: Day 3 Wrap-Up

Day 3 of Afera’s TechSem featured Session 4, “Production Technologies and Regulations”, chaired by Nitto (B) R&D Application Development Manager Michel Sabo. First up was a talk on additive manufacturing in plant and machine construction by Steffen Lambertz, project engineer at JHT Jakobs-Houben Technologie GmbH (D), a manufacturer of coating, laminating and impregnating plants. He showed us that process engineering added-value through targeted application of generatively manufactured machine parts can be created–even that which was previously unthinkable in areas of sustainability.

Next, Matthias May of SpecMetrix Systems (Sensory Analytics) (USA) discussed maximising QA and testing productivity utilising the latest real-time absolute coating thickness measurement technology. This provides accurate thickness measurements in real-time and can be used for many applications in adhesive films, measure wet or dry independent of substrate, reduce costs, improve quality and increase automation. BASF Executive Scientist of Regulatory Affairs and European Head of Product Stewardship of Dispersions (D) Martin Klatt presented “Microplastic and restriction on synthetic polymer particles”, including the definition, sources, E.U. restriction, enforcement, instructions for use and disposal and reporting.

Also from BASF SE, Alessandro Pistillo, director of digital strategic projects in the corporate development department, explained in interesting detail how for the chemical industry, the organisation “Together for Sustainability” has recently issued a Product Carbon Footprint Guideline for chemical and plastics raw materials and is working on a data exchange platform to drive standardisation. Before the last Q&A exchange with the audience, tesa Manager for the Analytics & Testing Lab Christian Brinkmann taught us “How to quantify the first contact of PSA interaction with surfaces”. He followed the temperature dependency of the free volume of a PSA, focusing on the polydispersity and the dynamical inhomogeneity using dielectric spectroscopy and rheology.

A farewell networking buffet lunch was served after concluding words from Mr. Storbeck. “We achieved a well-balanced mixture of speakers with industrial and scientific backgrounds, and as a result, a great briefing on front-end research and industrial development in the Industry,” he said. “I thought we struck a great balance among all areas of tape technology, from sustainability topics via raw materials and regulatory insights to high-performance PSAs. This has left us with a very powerful pressure-fuelling for the next few weeks!”

It really was a great event. Hats off to the organisers and staff!
Dr. Evert Smit
Afera President
Director Scouting 
Lohmann GmbH & Co., KG

For more information, visit https://aferatechnicalseminar.com/.