technology | LFTs
from SF-PAs, and now LFT-PAs are taking on SF-PPAs. Against this background, it will be interesting to see how LFT-PPAs will fi t into the market (companies including EMS Chemie and,more recently, Solvay are both involved in this area).
Design support
Figure 1: Mechanical properties of a variety of Akro-Plastic compounds including long and short glass fi bre reinforcement (C3 is a PA 66/6 blend; B3 is a PA6)
Assistance in product design is becoming an increas- ingly important part of the overall package offered by LFT technology suppliers and users. PolyOne, for example, has extended its IQ Design Labs service, already available in North America, to Europe (IQ Design Labs is the in-house industrial design group of PolyOne). A company spokeserson says that the service is not only for users of its OnForce LFTs, but because the success of an LFT project often depends so heavily on the correct use of CAE modelling, the extended service is “pretty signifi cant” for LFT-consuming customers.
Figure 2: Notched impact strength of Akro-Plastic LFT-PA (centre) compared with a competing LFT-PA (right) and one of its own short fi bre-reinforced PA grades
experience on which it can draw. “If you are new to LFTs, there are many challenges you need to overcome and Easicomp is offering a quite fast and cost-effective route into the market,” he says.
Harmia says that when he set up Easicomp, he
wanted to make a clear break from FACT. “We are using all the knowledge and experience we gained at FACT, but we are working in a different way,” he says. “At the start of Easicomp, there was a heavy development phase, and now we have found even better ways to bring thermoplastics and continuous fi bres together.” However, the production process is still a hot-melt pultrusion-type. Looking at the prospects for LFTs, Harmia says that
while growth is not as fast as it was - something only to be expected as a market grows and matures - it is still important. He says the biggest growth at the moment is in automobile hatchbacks. He says it is notable how LFTs are continuing to take on short fi bre (SF) rein- forced composites made in higher-performance polymers. So LFT-PPs have taken market share away
34 COMPOUNDING WORLD | May 2016
“Combining expertise in design, polymer science and manufacturing, IQ Design Labs works with customers in the early stages of product development to inspire creative designs that can be effi ciently manufactured and successfully launched,” the company says. Another innovative compounding company, Akro- Plastic, recently announced several grades of LFTs that it makes on an extruder built by sister company Feddem fi tted with a special pultrusion-type die. The company’s Head of Sales and Innovation, Thilo Stier, says the process was developed in-house.
Akro-Plastic is focusing on compounds based on polyamides and polyketones, which are available in small quantities for sampling. Stier highlights the PK-based grades in particular, which he says have outstanding properties, especially in creep resistance. He also says that long fi bres provide signifi cant improve- ments in impact strength (see Figures 1 and 2). Polyamide-based grades are available with the com- pany’s XTC stabilization technology, which improves high temperature resistance. This, Stier says, makes them suitable for applications previously reserved for high-temperature plastics such as PPA and PPS, or as replacements for metals.
Powerful partners Possibly one of the most signifi cant business develop- ments in the LFT sector is the recent tie-up between Coperion and Protec Polymer Processing. On the announcement of the collaboration last November, Coperion said it would expand its LFT technology offering in Europe and Asia. The two companies together now offer complete LFT pellet production installations. Coperion contributes its ZSK Mc18 or STS Mc11 twin screw extruders. The ZSK Mc18 series is used for
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