On the Cover
Montage—images captured at ANTEC™ 2007 and Plastics Encounter@ANTEC™.

ANTEC™ 2007 Wrapup
Plastics industry professionals thronged to the Annual Technical Conference of the Society of Plastics Engineers, ANTEC™ 2007, held in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 6-10. The conference was co-located for the first time with the Plastics Encounter trade show, organized by Plastics News and featuring over 225 exhibitors. A total of 3546 attendees were rawn to the event, where SPE also honored Society award recipients for 2007.
By Richard Stewart

Flame Ratardants: Is the Customer Always Right?
Brominated additives are something of a bête noire for OEMs trying to establish a "green" image—but perhaps for the wrong reasons. What then is the future for halogen-based flame retardants.
By Peter Mapletson

Europeans in China
Many Europe-based companies are opening manufacturing facilities in China; but what are the logistics and potential pitfalls; and how are things changing? Plastics Engineering visits Rosti's brand new facility in Suzhou to find out more.
By Patrick Stapley

Small is Big
Structure and interactions at the smallest scale reveal much about a material's performance.
Nanotechnology! The attention given to nano-scale materials is mega in scope. And in the background are people researching and trying to explain the many basic relationships between polymer, additive, and structure at the micron or sub-micron scale. Their efforts are guiding the industry into transforming plastics formulation and compounding from art to science. Several sessions at ANTEC™ 2007 focused on how additive-and-polymer interactions and microstructural characteristics critically influence macro properties. The summaries in this article are but a sampling from the dozens of papers related to these topics.
By Michael Tolinski