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NatureWorks Announces North American Buy Back Program

NatureWorks LLC announced it plans to institute a large-volume “buy-back” program in North America for post-consumer PLA bottles in mixed plastic waste recycling streams. The program provides an additional landfill waste diversion option for corn-based NatureWorks PLA, a material that already offers the most waste diversion choices of any other plastic. Through the buy-back program, commercial Municipal Recycling Facilities (MRFs) in geographic areas would separate post-consumer PLA bottles into distinct PLA bales meeting a predefined specification, resulting in truckload quantities (40,000 lbs.). NatureWorks LLC will buy these bales at an agreed-upon price and route them to an appropriate end-of-life solution and/or post-consumer use based on geography of collection and prevailing market economics. “NatureWorks LLC is committed to developing a responsible approach for introducing new plastic materials to the market and ensuring the successful introduction and proper disposal within the existing waste management and recycling infrastructures,” said Glenn Johnston, Manager – Global Regulatory Affairs at NatureWorks LLC. Today NatureWorks PLA can be sorted from other plastics using standard Near-Infrared (NIR) equipment. In the future, MRFs will have the ability to sort PLA into a pure stream that can be mechanically or chemically recycled back to its monomer through hydrolysis. As a […]

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Power Integrations Introduces New Product

Power Integrations (Nasdaq:POWI), a leader in high-voltage integrated circuits for power conversion, announced the latest application of its innovative power conversion technology, unveiling a simple, ultra-low component count driver circuit for off-line LED lighting. The circuit requires only nine components to deliver 40 mA of current and 0.5 W of output power — an ideal level for emergency exit signs, nightlights and a variety of other lighting applications. The design, entitled DI-92, utilizes LNK302, a member of Power Integrations’ LinkSwitch-TN family of integrated circuits. DI-92 is a constant-current LED driver circuit using a non-isolated buck-boost topology. The design’s low component count makes it extremely small, lightweight and inexpensive, with a materials cost of approximately 50 cents (in unit quantities of 10K). The circuit is also environmentally friendly, operating at up to 75 percent efficiency, well above the level achievable with passive designs. “Solid-state lighting is gaining popularity in applications where long lifetimes and low maintenance are important, such as emergency exit signs, traffic lights and commercial signage,” said Rich Fassler, director of product marketing for Power Integrations. “Another key benefit of LED lighting is energy efficiency, which makes our EcoSmart power conversion technology a natural fit for this market. As […]

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Power Integrations Introduces Low Component Count Off-Line LED Driver Circuit

Millennium Cell Inc. (NASDAQ: MCEL), a leading developer of hydrogen battery technology, has been awarded Phase II funding to continue its program with the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Power Technology Office (APTO) and the Department of Defense (DoD) Fuel Cell Test and Evaluation Center (FCTec) operated by Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC). In the second year of the program, Millennium Cell will develop an advanced solid borohydride fuel module for the 5kW system that was successfully demonstrated at FCTec during the program’s first phase. Millennium Cell will deliver the design and critical components of the module that will be constructed and tested by CTC personnel at FCTec. The DoD contracted with CTC to develop Common Core Power Production (C2P2) technology for the APTO by utilizing fuel cell systems as interchangeable power sources for military equipment. The solid fuel systems developed by Millennium Cell under this program will support the broad C2P2 initiatives of fielding affordable, integrated, reliable, zero-emissions, zero-grid military and civil aircraft service event capability for the U.S. military. Millennium Cell develops hydrogen battery technology through a patented chemical process that safely stores and delivers hydrogen energy to power portable devices. The borohydride-based technology can be scaled to fit any […]

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