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Our Polytives bFI A 3745 in action

Mar 30, 2023 | News

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Polytives bFI A 3745 in application

Polytives is a young company that develops and distributes polymer additives for the plastics industry. The first product family we are entering the market with includes polymer flow improvers (bFI) to improve the flow behavior of different plastic systems. In addition, we are always motivated to find innovative solutions for new applications. In this article, we will look at what insights and innovations our customers can report to us from the use of our additives in recent months.

Innovative, unusual, powerful

The first representative of the bFI product family, our Polytives bFI A 3745, was designed on the basis of an acrylate. One would think that the flow improver could thus be used mainly for acrylate-containing materials, but the opposite is true: As we have been able to prove in cooperation with innovation-enthusiastic customers, there is also lively interest in our additive solutions in other areas and a lot of potential for optimization. Findings on the use of one of our flow improvers in polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), in polycarbonate (PC), in polystyrene (PS), partly as a solution for crystal-clear applications and while maintaining grade purity, are currently available to us from the market.
We also have results for processing with PET, polyamides, ABS, PC-ABS, polyurethane, natural rubber (NR), polyolefins (PO) and other plastic systems. Here it is possible to blend our additive with the target system (i.e. to mix and process it with another type of plastic) and consequently implement outstanding performance increases with the blend.
The plastics mentioned above can be found in a wide variety of applications across virtually all industries. Car headlights, beverage bottles, yogurt pots and suitcases are just a few examples.

Temperature reduction, energy saving, performance increase.

We would like to elaborate on this: In the extrusion process, a temperature saving of a good 20% was achieved with a dosing range of 5-7%. In the injection molding process, similar savings potentials were measurable at comparable dosages. Overall, we generally observe a performance increase in the 2-digit range already with an addition of 1-3%, which increases the scope in processing for our customers. Particularly in ABS and PC-ABS, very good effects have been demonstrated. Here, too, we are talking about considerable energy savings and a significant improvement in flow.

Performance increases of between 50-100% were also possible in PET, PBT and PETG – a result we had not expected to this extent. With all these positive findings, another sampling was almost more extraordinary: our Polytives bFI A 3745 was incorporated into a polyurethane foam system. The novel, sustainable systems basically suffer from very tough melt flow conditions, which make foaming impossible at all or only with a great deal of additional effort. Only by adding our bFI A 3745 was it possible to achieve processability in a sustainable and process-safe manner.

Our conclusion

Once again it proves true that trial and error is the best policy! That’s why we are grateful for every new customer who is happy to sample even unusual systems with us in order to reveal the full potential of our flow improver family bFI piece by piece. Be the first in your field. It pays to ask and try out! Contact us or take the opportunity to meet us in October in Friedrichshafen at the FAKUMA, where we exhibit for the first time.