Materials
Elastomers • Thermoplastic Elastomers • Thermoplastics
Our Expertise for Your Material
Polymers in application – this is our core competence from which you benefit. We not only offer you the necessary and comprehensive material knowledge, but also build the bridge to application technology. We advise you on everything from material selection, production and quality assurance to the use of the materials. Moreover, if a component should fail in the application, we will clarify the root causes for you and help to prevent future damage.
We specialise in elastomers and thermoplastic elastomers. In addition, our wealth of experience also extends to certain thermoplastics, such as polyamide and PTFE. We are familiar with these material groups, advise you on their use and useful tests and qualify products for your application.
Elastomers
Materials with Flexibility
Elastomers, also commonly known as rubber, are dimensionally stable but elastically deformable plastics. They are largely incompressible and, unlike thermoplastics, do not melt even at high temperatures.
So much for theory.
In practice, however, it is not as simple as that. There is not only black or white, because elastomers do not follow a fixed property pattern. “It always depends…” is what elastomers are all about. And this is exactly where we help you to understand.
We support you with your everyday questions and challenges concerning the fascinating material rubber. After all, especially in the development phase of products, it is important to know the materials used and their behaviour in the application in detail.
Performance and Service Life
Important Factors for Elastomers
In terms of technical applications, it is primarily the elasticity and dynamic resilience, physical and chemical load capacity, ageing behaviour, low-temperature flexibility and heat resistance of the materials that determine whether they work or fail.
The formulation and processing quality of an elastomer influence its performance and service life just as much as external factors.
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Property comparison of different polymers
Different polymers have different basic property characteristics. NBR and EPDM, for example, differ in their essential chemical resistance.
Special properties of elastomers
Within a polymer group there can be considerable differences in the molecular structure. Ingredients and parameters vary from one compound to the next and sometimes have a serious influence on the material’s properties. The best examples of the slight but decisive differences are the plasticiser content, the cross-linking system or the ACN content in NBR materials.
Here you will find an overview of the most important parameters and their influence on the development of certain material properties of NBR, HNBR, EPDM, FKM, VMQ and PU:
Thermoplastic Elastomers TPE
Plastic mouldable and yet elastic
Thermoplastic elastomers have elastic properties at the right application temperature and are thus comparable to rubber materials. In contrast to typical elastomers, however, they melt when heat is applied and can be thermo-formed. Therefore, they are much easier to process than normal elastomers.
From this point of view, TPEs seem to combine the advantages of elastomers and thermoplastics and seem to be an optimal substitute for elastomer materials.
However, practical, application-oriented testing often reveals a different picture.
Performance of TPE
TPE - Weaker or stronger than an elastomer?
In some areas, TPE materials are inferior to a conventional elastomer. The compression set or the plasticiser content can be given as examples – especially in the case of elastomer alloys (TPE-O and TPE-V):
- Compression set: Depending on the measurement method, thermoplastic elastomers show much higher compression set values than elastomers. Sometimes the DVR is still comparable when measured on material samples that have been stress relieved at test temperature. However, for TPE samples that cool to room temperature before stress relief, it is then often above 90 percent.
- Plasticiser content: Thermoplastic elastomers with an average hardness of 70 Shore A often contain up to 30 percent plasticiser. This can be extracted or outgas in an application and thus lead to severe component shrinkage.
TPE - High-performance despite differences
In addition, there are further differences between TPEs and elastomers that are not obvious at first glance. And yet TPE materials are already replacing a conventional elastomer in numerous applications with great success. When it comes to physical resistance to extrusion of gaps or abrasion, thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers (TPU) have long been of outstanding importance for hydraulic seals. However, even in this area, there are considerable differences in properties or media resistance within the market range, often due to the processing influence.
It is therefore worth getting to the root of the matter and putting a TPE through its paces. Please feel free to contact us. Feel free to contact us. We will find out how capable your TPE material is.
Thermoplastics
Meltable Polymers
In terms of materials, we specialise in elastomers and thermoplastic elastomers. However, our expertise also covers individual thermoplastics such as polyamide or PTFE.
For our customers, we mainly deal with polyamide (PA) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which are both important technical thermoplastics. Here we regularly test and assess the basic physical properties of the materials and carry out chemical resistance tests.
We look forward to your enquiry.