engineering plastics | Compounds
much more frequent batch testing on properties like tensile strength than many other compounders. “As a result, we have tighter specifi cations than many others,” he says. “We operate within a tolerance band of ±1.5%, while the norm is ±2.0%.”
Figure 1: Impact Strength of two Chemlon 109 compounds Source: T
eknor Apex
outstanding low-temperature toughness. It exhibits 50% greater notched Izod impact strength at -40°C than the company’s standard Chemlon 109 toughened product. At -10°C, it still provides nearly as much impact resistance as it exhibits at room temperature, whereas that of standard Chemlon 109 has fallen by 75% (Figure 1).
Long fi bre options Germany’s Akro-Plastic joined the growing rank of companies producing long fi bre reinforced compounds earlier this year. Head of Sales and Innovation Thilo Stier says the new compounds are the result of a development project stretching over two years. Grades are currently available in polyamide and in polyketone. Stier says PK grades in particular show very low creep, since the polymer itself already excels in this respect. He says the long fi bre reinforcement also improves the impact strength of PK at low temperatures - while notched Charpy impact strength of a grade reinforced with 30% short glass fi bres falls to 10 kJ/m2
at -30°C,
the fi gure for a 40% reinforced LGF compound is 32. The company is also offering long fi bre grades based
on a blend of polyamides 6 and 66, as well as PA66/PPA. Stier says some Akro short fi bre reinforced 6/66 blends already have very good high temperature resistance, thanks to the use of its XTC stabilisation technology, but long fi bre reinforcement improves this further. He says there is virtually no loss of notched Charpy impact strength in a 50% reinforced 6/66 blend, even after 3,000 hours at 210°C. Stier says Akro-Plastic’s strength in glass reinforced engineering thermoplastics, especially ones with high loadings, can be traced back to its roots in toll manu- facturing where the emphasis is very much on process rather than formulation. “There is a more intense quality control,” he says, adding that the company does
76 COMPOUNDING WORLD | May 2016
Akro-Plastic continues to grow, too. The company has been operating in China for around 10 years and it started up the fi rst line at a new plant in Brazil last September, where there is room for three more. Growth is very much a feature of RTP Company’s business as well. “It’s a changing landscape,” says Jean Sirois, the company’s commercial director for the EMEA region. He cites the acquisition of toll compounder Alloy Polymers, whose assets RTP bought at the end of 2014, and Polymer Partners, a specialist in black compounds and masterbatches that RTP acquired last August. The latter complements that of Clariant’s conductive compounds back in 2012.
RTP is also taking some of the load off polymer
majors. It earlier acquired part of ExxonMobil’s Santoprene business, involving grades that can bond to polyamides, and this August, it licensed the Radel R-7000 series of polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) resins from Solvay. This agreement allows RTP to produce and sell Radel R-7000 resins to the global commercial aircraft industry. Solvay says the agreement will greatly expand global supply channels, helping to shorten lead times and broaden options for ordering the resins in custom colours in small- to large-volumes. PolyOne revealed at Fakuma 2015 that Sylumis, a
leading French manufacturer of LED lighting systems, had replaced metal with one of its thermally conductive polymer solutions in a new larger model in its Orion range of LED spot lamps. Replacing metal with the Therma-Tech conductive compound based on polyamide 66 enabled Sylumis to manufacture the lamps more effi ciently and to use a more innovative design, according to PolyOne. With 32.4W of power, the new addition to the Orion
range is signifi cantly more powerful than the current 9W and 18W versions. PolyOne supported Sylumis in the development of the Therma-Tech part, which provides a 25% higher heat exchange surface area and weighs 9% less than an equivalent aluminium heat sink. The polymer compound also meets all the relevant safety standards, including UL94-V0 fl ame class rating at 3mm thickness. Also at Fakuma, Albis highlighted its Alcom EC devel- opment PC/ABS grades for EMI shielding. Joachim Bernhard, Marketing Director for E&E, said the new compounds contain 15% stainless steel fi bres to provide effective shielding of around 50dB in the range 104 to 1012 Hz. He points out that using inherently electrically
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