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What happened to PEN?

As we look back over the first two years of Packaging World’s first two decades, few stories are more intriguing than our July ‘95 cover story about PEN (polyethylene naphthalate).

Pw 72137 20years 1014 Db

Touting oxygen and moisture properties four to five times better than PET, a glass transition temperature 43 deg C higher than that of PET (thus making it hot-fillable without sidewall deformation), and molding and blowing cycles shorter than those required for PET, PEN homopolymers and naphtha late-based copolyesters were all the rage at technical conferences throughout that year. But questions about cost, recyclability, machineability, and food contact clearance never really got answered sufficiently, and the end result is that today we hear very little about this once bright start in the galaxy of packaging resins.

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