Extrusion International 5-2016

From 19 to 26 October, the international plastics and rubber industry will be meeting at K 2016 in

Duesseldorf and presenting its solutions. The global flagship fair for the sector and industrial appli-

cations, K unites central industry trends and future trends at a single venue. It has become estab-

lished as the innovation and business platform not only for raw materials producers, manufacturers

of plastics and rubber machinery, and processors, but also for stakeholders from the key user indus-

tries. Again, the strongest contingent of exhibitors comes from Europe, especially from Germany, Italy,

Austria, Switzerland, France and Turkey, but there is also an impressive number of participants from

the USA. At the same time, K is a clear indicator of changes in the global market: over the past years,

the number of Asian companies and the exhibition space booked by them has been rising steadily,

and this year, particularly China, Taiwan, India, Japan and South Korea will be impressing visitors with

their strong presence. Since K welcomes highly diverse companies from all over the world, the spot-

light is not only on the industry’s major talking points – such as energy, resource and materials effi-

ciency – but also on niche segments.

This year, international machine and equipment manufacturers, K’s largest group of exhibitors, will be

presenting an abundance of world premieres. Occupying about two thirds of the exhibition grounds,

exhibitors from this particular group will be showing their products in halls 1 to 4 and halls 9 to 17. En-

gineers and machine manufacturers from all over the world are already working flat out so they can

present live demonstrations of new complex production units in October. K 2016 provides a unique op-

portunity for drawing global attention to innovations, as no other event anywhere in the world attracts

such an international and expert audience.

Raw materials and auxiliaries specialists will be presenting the leading edge in polymer science: ma-

terials with superior resource efficiency that help to achieve a better balance between economic and

ecological performance. In addition to the optimisation of standard polymers, this year’s major top-

ics will centre on additives and fillers, biopolymers and functional polymers as well as on self-rein-

forcing polymers.

K has always had its finger on the pulse of technological development. This is borne out not only by the

presentations at exhibitor stands, but also by the supporting programme, which provides real added

value for visitors. The special show, the Science Campus, Bioplastics Business Breakfasts, the Design

Chain Conference, 3D fab+print and the plastics training initiative focus on specific aspects and in-

dustry-related issues: the perfect opportunity to gather strategic information.

K 2016 - looking at the future