Advanced Materials

摘要

Idemitsu Unitech Co., Ltd. has developed a new type of high-brightness reflective sheet Ecoly that is usable for safety checking by police and fire departments. The new product uses a soft polyolefin as its basic material and is comprised of a unique plastic material design and microembossing technology, which displays an initial brightness of 300 candela. The polyolefin material is a plastic material with a slight burden on the environment, consists only of carbon and hydrogen, and is a typical polyethylene substance with a comparatively stable molecular structure. Up till now, soft prism type reflective sheets consisted primarily of polyvinyl chloride, but more recently, polyolefin has come to attract attention as a promising material featuring excellent compatibility with the environment. By capitalizing on the characteristics intrinsic to polyolefins, it is now usable even in cold environments where the conventional type of polyvinyl chloride reflective sheet had been unusable.