TPE-V with excellent adhesion to polyamide

摘要

Raw materials, energy and processes are key cost drivers in many sectors of the plastics industry. In order to save time and keep costs down, many companies have been focusing heavily on optimizing and modifying process steps. This also affects (for example) installation procedures as well as the number of steps involved when connecting different materials within a single component. Bonding and joining connections are particularly time-intensive, since preparing, manufacturing and processing these parts all frequently involve multi-step procedures. One such step is applying a primer and/or pretreatment using plasma or corona. Multi-component injection molding represents an exceptional alternative when connecting materials with different properties in a single process step. Among other things, this method can be used to combine hard and soft materials, which are by nature incompatible. When used as the soft component in such material combinations, adhesion-modified thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPE-V) adhere very well to many thermoplastics, making a number of complex applications possible. Polyamides (PA) are among the most common hard components; polyamide/TPE-V combinations combine the good processing characteristics of technical thermoplastics with the rubber-elastic properties of ethylene-pro-pylene-diene monomers (EPDM rubber). This is why Albis Plastic GmbH has developed Alfater XL A5514PA0010, a new, highly processable TPE-V that adheres well to all polyamides. Albis Plastic developed the product in cooperation with the SKZ - Das Kunststoff-Zentrum (SKZ - The German Plastics Center), who performed injection molding operations and conducted 2K adhesion tests, measuring adhesive properties precisely during materials development and final product validation to help Albis Plastic obtain objective assessments of the formulas.