MOSCOW (MRC) -- German specialty chemicals company Lanxess has introduced innovative and polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) and polyamide grades for the automotive industry, reported the company on its site.
Lanxess sees great potential for the use of PBT and polyamide compounds in production of vehicle exterior body parts - for example bumpers, sills, front grilles, door handles, fuel tank flaps, spoilers and mirror housings.
"That is why we are building up a wide range of Durethan and Pocan materials for this use segment. The development work is focusing on application-specific, optimized mechanical properties, as well as good surface qualities and good paintability," says Frank Krause, design expert at Lanxess.
An innovative material for fuel tank flaps, for example, is Pocan B 5220 XF reinforced with a glass bead content of 20%. The product is an alternative to blends of polyphenylene ethers and polyamide (PPE+PA), which are often used in series-produced fuel tank flaps because they can be painted online. A disadvantage of such blends, however, is their high degree of moisture absorption, which has an undesirable effect on the required dimensional accuracy. PBT, by contrast, stands out by virtue of its high degree of dimensional stability.
Besides, Lanxess has specially developed Pocan TP 406-001 for radiator grilles. "The non-reinforced polycarbonate+PBT blend material was conceived primarily for parts with Class A surfaces, which are given a high-gloss coating," Krause says. The material displays very low and uniform shrinkage and hardly any tendency to distortion at all. Thanks to the blend's extreme toughness even in cold temperatures, the radiator grille does not shatter into shards in the event of a collision, which helps protect nearby pedestrians. The high heat deflection temperature ensures that long, horizontal grille fins do not sag as a result of exposure to the radiator heat.
For exterior bodywork parts that are not coated online, the LANXESS product line continues to feature materials including non-reinforced (PBT+PC) and (PET+PC) blends, and reinforced (PBT+PET) blends. A good choice for spoilers, for example, is Pocan TP 957-001, which consists of up to 25 percent post-consumer recyclate from PET bottles. The mineral-reinforced (PET+PC) blend is very impact-resistant and displays minimal distortion, among other properties. Durethan DP 2131/20 W1 EF, a heat-stabilized polyamide 6 with easy flow characteristics, is a great material for substructures of spoilers, exterior mirror housings and door handles. It provides non-coated exterior bodywork parts with excellent resistance to weathering.
As MRC informed previously, in early July, 2013, Lanxess celebrated the opening of its first production facility in Russia. In the new plant at the Lipetsk site, Lanxess subsidiary Rhein Chemie manufactures polymer-bound rubber additives for the markets in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), primarily for the automotive and tire industries. A production facility for the bladders used in tire production is to be added in 2016.
Lanxess is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.3 billion in 2013 and roughly 17,300 employees in 31 countries. The company is currently represented at 52 production sites worldwide. The core business of Lanxess is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals.
MRC