THERMALLY CONDUCTIVE | INTERVIEW
CW: What factors need to be considered when selecting a conductive masterbatch? Posca: Of course, the kind of conductivity you want to achieve, dosing and dispersion capabilities of your own equipment, and the base polymers of the masterbatch, which must be compliant to the base resin of the compound.
Above: Lati has been develop- ing thermally conductive compounds at its plant at Vedano Olona (VA) in Italy since 2003
CW: What other material advances are you working on and for what end markets? Posca: Laticonther CP6 and CP7 were designed to offer electrical insulation, flame retardancy and an interesting price to ceramic-based compounds offering a much higher thermal conductivity than ordinary ceramics (4-6 W/m·K). CP8 is a ceramic based formula developed on PA9T for high temperature and chemical resistance applications, as cooling systems for e-mobility. Latinconther 57T CP8 grades are our newborns and we’re promoting them on the market right now.
CW: Are you now using a wider range of conduc- tive materials in your products? Posca: For thermal conductivity we use ceramics of different kinds, including boron nitride for electri- cally insulating. Graphite is used on electrically conductive. Synergistic effects of graphite and other fillers are being tested right now. For electri- cal conductivity we use carbon black, fibres, nanotubes, steel fibres, conductive polymers. Very interesting developments are coming from these synergistic combinations.
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CW: Do you consider thermally conductive or electrically insulating materials to be mainstream and, if not, what are the current barriers to imple- mentation? Posca: Thermally conductive and electrically insulating are, for sure, the new borderline of applications. Low conductivity, brittleness and high viscosity are still issues to be overcome. On the contrary, mature and well performing compounds such as graphite-based electrically conductive are most promising from a market/volume point of view — once designers and decision makers correctly understand their capabilities and how to design with conductive plastics!
CW: Any other thermally conductive plastics development going on at Lati you would like to highlight? Posca: One interesting topic — 3D printable thermally conductive compounds. A challenge that deserves better investigation, Lati already has a few grades available for sale but the range needs further development. Another interesting market need is thermally conductive stock shapes for machining and prototyping to verify performance before investing in [injection moulding] tools. There is a massive request but very little — almost no — offer. Another interesting opportunity — accu- rate prediction using state of the art FEA and computer simulation. Accurate material characteri- sation is required, as well as experience and competence. �
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IMAGE: LATI
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