Innventik present at AMI’s Compounding World Congress 2022 (Cologne, Germany, 7-8 June 2022).
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- Innventik present at AMI’s Compounding World Congress 2022 (Cologne, Germany, 7-8 June 2022).
Innventik present at AMI’s Compounding World Congress 2022 (Cologne, Germany, 7-8 June 2022).
Cologne, Germany (June 2022). Dr. Walter Ramirez, Chief Innovation Officer at Innventik, presented the conference: “Recent Advances in Functional Fillers and Additives“, about the applications and strategies to enhance performance in Advanced Materials and Polymer Composites, at AMI’s Compounding World Congress 2022 (Cologne, Germany, 7-8 June 2022).
Diversity of MIneral Filler Options.
- Functional fillers exhibit increased demand for Infrastructure, Automotive, EVs, Antistatic/ESD/EMI Protection, Electronic Devices, Energy Harvesting and Batteries applications.
- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies show that using fillers reduces environmental emissions and impact on resources.
- Ground Calcium Carbonate (GCC: 34% market share) will still be the most commonly used inorganic filler in plastics because of its abundance, low cost, and performance (stiffness, impact strength, flexural modulus).
- Hydrated Magnesium Silicate (Talc) provides better rigidity and impact strength (i.e. polyolefins). Higher purity grades using advanced milling technology provides improved thermal stability for packaging.
- Silicates (i.e. Mica, Kaolin, Wollastonite, Kyanite) are good options for mechanical properties modification and coupling (Xanthos, 2010).
- In Fibrous Fillers performance depends on fiber type and on fiber/matrix bonding interface. The high cost of fibers is a limiting factor. Glass fiber (GF) is the mostly used, but Natural Fibers (NFs) are emerging to modify mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties.
Thermally Conductive Additives.
- High demand for Thermally Conductive Polymers is being driven by: EVs, autonomous transportation, 5G Communication, Smart appliances, Infrastructure.
- Production of electrically conductive compounds based on all types of polymers (from polyolefins to high end engineering plastics) using conductive additives is raising.
- EMI Shielding plastics (i.e. CNTs, carbon fibers and other fillers) is gaining momentum due to growth in e-mobiity, light-weighting megatrends and paintability (electrospray) in automotive.
- GRMs (i.e. Graphene, Graphene Oxide) will be a significant option when capacity raises cost be more competitive.
Renewable and Sustainable Filler Options.
Environment pressures, rapid increase in raw material prices, record-high freight costs, stretched capacity, increased lead times (supply bottlenecks) for virgin products creates opportunities for bio-composites and for high-quality recycled products:
- Materials reinforced with NFs: sisal, flax, jute, wood-fibers to replace GF and CF, offer biodegradability, renewable nature, low cost, low relative density, high specific strength. European car manufacturers demand these materials.
- Carbon fibre exhibited abrupt demand drop, but now is at record high levels due to aviation uplift, EVs, lightweight/strong wind energy.
- Materials combining robust mechanical performance (strength & stiffness) with tailored electrical characteristics (anti-static, conductive, EMI).
High Potential Minerals as Fillers.
- Alternate functional fillers opportunities in polymer composites to reduce cost, to improve properties, as sustainable options to improve environmental impact.
- The main challenge: To retain original mechanical properties, durability, strength, rheological properties and processability.
- Large production of minerals and fillers (cheap, available, soft, hard, heavy, light, refractive index, abrasion resistance, reinforcing, colors) offer considerable space for alternate fillers options to be used in polymer composites.
- Large opportunities of collaboration to develop new grades of fillers:
- Production of tailored materials at the nanoscale to create unique materials
- Paradigm change on existing energy storage capabilities and materials performance.
Sustainability, material pricing, prevalence of e-commerce, logistics and skilled workforce shortage are some of the key challenges that Polymer Composites industry will face over the next decade.
Comments 1
innventik
I am interested in the conference copies.
Regards