MOSCOW (MRC) -- Solvay Specialty Polymers has announced the commercial introduction of new super-fine powder (SFP) and ultra-fine powder (UFP) grades of KetaSpire polyetheretherketone (PEEK) for water-borne coatings, powder coatings, and resin pre-impregnation of continuous fiber composites, said Fibre2fashion.
These new KetaSpire PEEK powders provide excellent strength, durability, and chemical resistance for demanding applications in chemical processing, oil and gas, aerospace, semiconductor, healthcare, transportation, and other industrial uses.
“Since PEEK is a semi-crystalline resin and is very difficult to dissolve in common solvents, the application of coatings from solution is not a viable process option,” explained Jamal El-Hibri, principal scientist for Solvay Specialty Polymers.
In addition to coatings, another major application area for KetaSpire SFP and UFP powders is the solventless pre-impregnation of continuous carbon fiber and other continuous fiber reinforcements, with PEEK resin as a thermoplastic matrix.
This is achieved through an electrostatic powder coating process and the finest possible particle size allows for good coating, even distribution, and uniform melting of the PEEK resin around the reinforcement.
Solvay’s super-fine PEEK powder offering includes KetaSpire KT-880 SFP, a high-flow grade, and KetaSpire KT-820 SFP, a low-flow version. The ultra-fine PEEK powder line includes KetaSpire KT-880 UFP, a high-flow grade, and KetaSpire KT-820 UFP, a low-flow material. All four grades are unreinforced and supplied in a natural color.
As MRC wrote before, Solvay and Ineos Group Holdings, which plan to merge their European vinyl chloride assets in a EUR4.3 billion (USD5.7 billion) deal, may sell a German site to help win regulatory approval. Ineos’s site in Schkopau, with the capacity to make about 150,000 tons of PVC a year, may fetch about 60 million euros.
Solvay Specialty Polymers manufactures more high-performance plastics than any other company in the world. The company supplies over 1500 products across 35 brands of high-performance polymers – fluoropolymers, fluoroelastomers, fluorinated fluids, semi-aromatic polyamides, sulfone polymers, aromatic ultra polymers, high-barrier polymers and cross-linked high-performance compounds – for use in Aerospace, Alternative Energy, Automotive, Healthcare, Membranes, Oil & Gas, Packaging, Plumbing, Semiconductors, Wire & Cable, and other markets.
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