Pomini expands its commitment to the U.S. compounding market.

Pomini, Inc., the U.S. arm of the Italian manufacturer of batch and continuous compounding machinery, has taken several steps in the past year to increase its ability to serve North American plastics processors.

First, Pomini expanded its management staff by creating the new position of plastics sales engineering manager, held by Ken Nekola.

Second, Pomini recently signed an agreement with Cleveland-based Tenk Machine and Tool Co. to provide complete remanufacturing services for Pomini equipment. Tenk personnel are being trained and supervised by Pomini engineers. All repairs will be guaranteed by Pomini, Inc. to meet original equipment specifications. Tenk personnel are being trained for field service and troubleshooting, which will minimize the present need to bring in service engineers from Italy.

And third, Pomini has installed a greatly expanded process laboratory at its Brecksville, Ohio, headquarters. In addition to rubber-type batch mixers, there now are two continuous machines. One is a Compact Compounder with 50-mm, twin-rotor LCM (Long Continuous Mixer) and close-coupled, 75-mm, single-screw discharge extruder. Pomini's LCM rotors have a 10:1 L/D, twice as long as other continuous mixers because it has two mixing zones instead of one.

The other new lab machine is a 40-mm LCMAX twin-screw extruder (corotating, intermeshing type) that has a mixing section with wing-type rotors (similar to a continuous mixer) and a radial throttle valve to control residence time in the mixing section. The valve is said to make the machine highly versatile for compounding filled polyolefins, high-viscosity engineering resins, color concentrates, and even flexible PVC. This type of machine was first introduced to North America at NPE (see PT, May '94, p. 83).

To inform North American processors about Pomini compounding equipment, the company will sponsor a free seminar on continuous mixing (including discussion of feeding, screen changing, and pelletizing) April 27 at the University of Akron. A demonstration of both machines at Pomini's lab will be featured.