What price premium will you pay for bioplastics? In general, look for a premium of 20 to 30 percent above what you now pay for a comparable material. That’s an artificial figure, but it’s what OEMs think customers will pay for the environmental friendliness plus the enhanced properties some of these grades will have.I say artificial, because seemingly like all things that overcome our “energy” or “global warming” crisis (pick your decade) costs will be very high until there is economy of scale. And economy of scale for plastics is huge. American OEMs that have been leaders in this field, such as John Deere, have not pursued bio materials for economic reasons. They pursued them for political reasons. Deere, for example, wanted to support its farmer-customers, particularly in the soybean area, where grants were available.
Ford and Unifi, maker of Repreve, will gather and recycle 2 million plastic bottles at CES and other shows for conversion into the Repreve seat fabric used in the 2012 Focus EV.
Thanks to embedded electronics, medical devices are getting smaller and smarter than ever. Pacemakers and implantable defibrillators are now able to call physicians. MRIs, CT scanners, and ultrasound machines are gaining mobility. And the venerable Band-Aid may soon be able to detect illnesses ranging from fevers to heart arrhythmias. On February 21, join Design News senior editor Charles Murray for a wide-ranging discussion, "Embedded Angles for Medical Products," which will explore the latest developments in medical electronics. The discussion will examine advances in medical device technology and offer an inside look at the embedded electronics behind it.
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