engineering plastics | Innovation
Right: Gears produced by US-based
Kleiss Gears, now part of
PAEK specialist Victrex
increased its polymer capacity by around 70% to over 7,000 tonnes/yr and several rivals, most notably Solvay and Evonik, are also adding capacity on a smaller scale. Victrex is particularly proactive in kick-starting key end-user markets. While numerous producers of engineering thermoplastics have invested in down- stream compounding operations to get closer to their markets, Victrex has gone one step further by moving into semi-finished and finished product development and manufacture. It has already done this with extruded pipes and films, and now it has applied the strategy to injection moulded gears with the acquisition in July of US-based polymer gears specialist Kleiss Gears. Victrex says the acquisition will “help facilitate the
is considered to be a drawback of PPS compounds often considered for NMT applications.
Confidence in PEEK At Victrex, Group Commercial Director Barry Andrew says recent and planned expansions among producers of polyaryletherketones are a clear demonstration of confidence in the growth prospects for this family of very high performance polymers (the best known of which is polyetheretherketone, PEEK). Earlier this year, Victrex
rapid development of answers to key challenges facing customers across industries, including enhanced durability and reliability, better performance, significant reductions in energy consumption and weight, and up to 50% reduction in noise, vibration and harshness (NVH), compared with metal gears.” Customers will benefit from integrated polymer-based gear capabilities, including design, prototyping, testing, tool design and manufacture of polymer-based gears, it says. “People have only scratched the surface in using
Growing activity in performance PPS
Numerous companies are expanding into polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) or extending existing offerings. DSM, for example, earlier this year announced a PPS joint venture with Chinese polymer supplier NHU and Joost d’Hooghe, Commercial Manager for Engineering Plastics in Europe says he sees the resin as a good addition to the company’s portfolio alongside its Stanyl PA46. The broadening of DSM’s portfolio will be an advantage for customers, says d’Hooghe, particularly in the automotive and electronics sectors where many are looking to improve logistical efficiencies by sourcing different materials from a single supplier. He also hints at the possibility of developments in compounds containing both PPS and polyamides. Solvay Specialty Polymers completed its acquisition of the Ryton PPS business from Chevron Phillips in January 2015. At Fakuma, Solvay’s Tom Wood said plans for the business were going well. “We are ahead of plan, we are seeing synergies,
82 COMPOUNDING WORLD | March 2016
and we have made tremendous improve- ments in manufacturing,” he says, referring to a plant that CP Chem opened in 2009 that had notable production problems. Solvay is now making more tougher PPS grades, he says. Also at Fakuma, Albis (which inherited
the Tedur business from Bayer several years ago) highlighted a recently-intro- duced grade with improved electrical properties aimed at applications such as power inverters for electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as connectors, cable clamps, fuse components and the like. Technical Compounds Product Specialist Thies Wrobel says one weakness of PPS is its relatively poor Comparative Tracking Index (CTI), which in regular grades is often no more than 150 V. Its Tedur HTR 2465 14080 grade can achieve a CTI Performance Level Category (PLC) 1, meaning CTI between 400 and 599. The value also remains stable after heat ageing. The grade also offers higher thermal conductivity, at around 1.0 W/m.K,
and has a UL 94 flammability rating of V-0 at 1.5 mm. Wrobel says Albis is working for a full Yellow Card for the compound, which contains 65% glass and mineral fillers. A Schulman announced a strategic
partnership with the South Korean polymer producer INITZ in October 2014 for the compounding and marketing of INITZ’s Ecotran PPS compounds. INITZ is a 65/35 joint venture between SK Chemicals and Teijin, with a new 12,000 tonne/yr plant in Ulsan, South Korea. When the jv was announced in late 2013,Teijin said INITZ expected to produce the world’s first chlorine- or sodium-free PPS resins, using proprietary technolo- gies from SK Chemicals. At Chinaplas earlier this year, SK said the plant would start up before the end of this year.
Click on the links for more information: ❙
www.dsmep.com ❙
www.solvayspecialtypolymers.com ❙
www.albis.com ❙
www.aschulman.com
www.compoundingworld.com
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