Compounding and Extrusion of TPV's; New Development of Machinery Equipment

摘要

Thermoplastic elastomers - also referred to as TPE - belong to a relatively young group of materials that is continuously gaining in importance. The automotive industry, in particular, contributes to a decisive increase in the overall consumption. In ideal circumstances, TPEs combine the functional properties of rubber with the processing characteristics of thermoplastics, thus filling the gap between elastomers and thermoplastic materials. The number of possible structures of TPE materials is almost unlimited. The continuous development of new variants, the multitude of currently available TPE types with various structural features and the different material characteristics as compared to plastics and elastomers require new concepts in order to adapt the thermoplastics processing to the specific requirements of TPE materials. TPEs can be basically subdivided into the following main groups: block copolymers and elastomer blends. These are two-phase systems composed of an elastic soft phase and a thermoplastic rigid phase (Fig. 1). The aforementioned groups can be broken down into additional TPE classes (Fig. 2).