Extrusion International USA 2-2019

28 Extrusion International 2/2019 EXTRUSION INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRY NEWS Vice President promoted Linda Campbell, the current Director of Sales for ENTEK Manufacturing, has been promoted to Vice President of Sales. Dr. Kirk Hanawalt, President of ENTEK Manufacturing, made the announcement. Since joining ENTEK, Linda has worked in a variety of positions for the company including Accounting, Purchasing, Sales, and Customer Support. She has been a key contributor to the development of ENTEK Ex- truder’s business selling extruders, extrusion systems, wear parts, and services. As part of the company’s leadership team she provides leadership and guidance in managing ev- ery aspect of ENTEK Manufacturing’s daily operations. Linda is the leader with primary responsibility for ENTEK Extruders’ customer-facing and inside sales teams and the extrusion pi- lot plant. In 2016, Linda was honored by Plastics News as one of its ‘Women Breaking the Mold’, its yearly special report on in- fluential women in the plastics industry. She is a member of the WBM advisory board and recently served on an industry panel at the 2018 Plastics News Women Breaking the Mold conference in Chicago. “Linda is deeply committed to the practice of servant lead- ership which has the core principle that a leader should be focused primarily on the growth and well-being of the ENTEK www.entek.com people they lead,” said Kirk Hanawalt. “She also embraces and consistently practices ENTEK’s core values of respect, commitment, integrity, and innovation. Linda’s new title is a well-deserved recognition of her invaluable contributions to building the extruder business and her vision for growing and strengthening that business in the years to come,” he said. “We congratulate her and thank her for all she does for ENTEK, ENTEK’s employees, ENTEK’s customers, and the Lebanon, Oregon community in which she lives.” Precision Film Casting with Venturi Dryer Process systems manufacturer IPCO has introduced a high precision continuous casting systemthat enables the production of membrane and film products to exceptionally narrow toler- ances. The system is based on a polished steel belt and combines a precision slot die with a compact and efficient Venturi dryer. The slot die, supplied by TSE TROLLER, applies a homogenous layer of liquid product onto themoving steel belt with outstand- ing consistency of thickness. The cast layer is then transported through the Venturi drying unit to achieve a stable, high quality product in an extremely efficient manner. The solvent – aqueous or organic – is quickly evaporated, result- ing in an end product almost completely free of tension both laterally and longitudinally. IPCO https://ipco.com This highprecision systemdramatically improves the castingpro- cess, enabling the production of film products to exceptionally narrow tolerances without any risk of skin formation or costly faults and imperfections in the final material. The inherent ben- efits of this indirect drying solution also result in an exceptionally high degree of energy efficiency. IPCO has installed a full casting system at its Industrial Process- ing Productivity Center near Stuttgart, Germany and this is avail- able for process assessment andproduct testing. Bernd Fischer is responsible for Application Engineering Process Development: “The development of our Venturi unit represents a major step forward in drying technology and we invite manufacturers to see this for themselves. Our technicians and engineers will be available toprovide full support in terms ofmapping theprocess in batchmode.” Typical applications include the casting of filter membranes (ni- trocellulose), ceramic tapes (polymer resins), edible films (solu- ble polymers), optical films (TAC) and battery film (Li-Ion). IPCO’s innovative drying system for high quality film casting