The Polymer Processing Institute is an independent research corporation headquartered at New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ USA. Its mission is to assist industry by implementing the advanced knowledge in the field of polymer technology and related areas through sponsored research, development and education, and to disseminate information via technology transfer. PPI is involved in extension activities for the plastics industry (through the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program), edits its own journal, "Advances in Polymer Technology", edits and authors its own Monograph Series, organizes meetings for member companies on generic aspects of polymer processing, offers training opportunities and advanced-level short courses for engineers and scientists in the industry, and supports the education and research needs of graduate and undergraduate students.

PPI's human resources include a technical staff of more than 15 professionals and renowned associated consultants. Governed by a distinguished board of trustees, PPI enjoys a close working relationship with its Corporate members, even though number of which decreased substantially from the past (nearly 40 at one time) and include the largest and most prestigious international corporations in the polymer industry. With the arrival of Dr. Kun Sup Hyun as President, after a successful industrial R&D career from The Dow Chemical Company, on Feb. 1^st, 2001, the Institute is available for consulting major companies how to set up a successful leveraging group in polymer processing in the companies as he had demonstrated at Dow for 12 years.

PPI’s main research focus is the modification of polymers through processing into special property, high-value products that are suitable for the medical, health care, automotive, electronics, construction, and packaging industries. Other research initiatives include nanocomposites and conducting polymer systems, the development of on-line process/ product monitors PPI's special area of expertise is the development of appropriate polymer processing operations, including reactive processing and microstructure development by compounding and thermoplastic extrusion foam processing to obtain high performance materials and products. These activities are supported by excellent facilities in property characterization, in-and on-line process monitors and computer modeling. PPI's Process and Characterization Labs and Computation Center are very well equipped, up-to-date and professionally managed. The flexible Process Labs contain virtually all important extrusion, compounding and injection molding machines, Single and Twin Mixing Element Evaluators and a multitude of in-house on-line process monitors.

PPI's research services encompass generic, multi-client and proprietary contract research associated with the development of polymer products and processes. The computer services include packaged software for single screw extrusion and die design and property analysis (WinSSD™), as well as materials and process data banks and custom software development as well as co-development.

The headquarter of the Polymer Processing Institute (PPI) was moved from Stevens Institute of Technology to the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) on January 1, 1999. The move took place after sixteen years at Stevens, where PPI was founded in 1982. The move to NJIT served PPI’s need for a large, contiguous polymer processing laboratory space, which is provided for by the factory floor facility in the Guttenberg Information Technology Center (GITC) building.

PPI remains an independent, not-for-profit research corporation, whose mission is to work with industry to advance knowledge and technology in the field of polymer processing and related areas. This mission is carried out through sponsored research, development, education and publication of its journal Advances in Polymer Technology, a Monograph Service with Hanser as well as presenting the results of generic research in technical meetings and in papers published in technical journals.

PPI first linked with NJIT in 1995 when our Director of Research, Marino Xanthos, joined the NJIT chemical engineering faculty, revitalizing the university's polymer program. In the first five years PPI has been a partner of the Multi-lifecycle Engineering Research Center program at NJIT, funded by the NJ Commission of Science and Technology.

At NJIT, PPI works very closely with the Center for Manufacturing Systems (CMS) and the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NJMEP), an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting small and medium size New Jersey Manufacturers. Both PPI and CMS serve as technical service providing partners of NJMEP.

PPI was also a participant in the NJIT Polymer Engineering Center (PEC), which served as the home for academic faculty research in Polymer Engineering. PPI's equipment and technical personnel are available to the faculty and graduate students conducting research in Polymer Engineering. PPI’s research labs are used for undergraduate and graduate laboratory instruction. The Director of the PEC was Professor Xanthos who now serves as Chair of the Executive Committee for the Council of Material Science and Engineering. Even though PEC is dissolved, PPI now facilitates the previous PEC function.

PPI’s move to NJIT extended the university’s ability to address industrial development need and catalyzes cross-disciplinary research and educational programs with NJIT in the field of polymer engineering and science.

On the other hand, as an established public research university with a mission of economic development and service, NJIT is providing PPI with a broad technology base. Dr. Hyun, Dr. Gogos and Dr. Todd are also Research Professors in the Otto H. York Department of Chemical Engineering facilitating the interaction between NJIT and PPI.