ENHANCING POLYMER PROPERTIES WITH NEW EFFECTS: PERMANENT ANTISTATS

摘要

The initial appearance and functional performance of plastic products are important factors that the consumer considers when making a product purchase. Color, surface textures and part design contribute to catching the customer's eye in the market place. After purchase, the consumer expects the product to retain the same appeal during the lifetime of the product. The appearance of the product should not change significantly during use and it should not break prematurely. Static electricity is an effect that most of us are familiar with, but don't often consider unless we are shocked! Clothes dryers produce static cling on synthetic fabrics. Scuffing your shoes across the carpet can also lead to a static "shock" or "spark" when you touch a door knob or contact someone else. In other environments, for example, electronics manufacturing areas, or chip manufacturing facilities, electrostatic discharge events are a significant cause of electronic device failures. Integrated circuits are especially prone to damage by electrostatic discharge (ESD). To protect these sensitive components during manufacture and assembly as well as during use, proper protective devices and procedures are required. Newly developed and commercially available permanent antistatic compounds are suitable for use in packaging films, materials handling containers, flooring and other protective materials applications. Furthermore, these compounds can be used in myriad applications where a permanent antistatic effect is required, such as in printer and copy machine housings, medical and diagnostic equipment housings where enhanced surface cleanliness is desirable, and also in potentially hazardous environments (ignitable dust or vapor/gas atmospheres) where static discharge could lead to explosions. These polymeric compounds offer many attractive features not available with conventional antistats or other conductive fillers: they are colorable, effective a low relative humidity, are non-sloughing and non-contaminating, easily processable and compatible with a wide range of polymeric substrates and lave demonstrated economic benefits versus alternative materials.