Nanoclays
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Why settle for this? |
When you can have this?
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| Single Screw Alone | Single Screw + Tek-MixTM |
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Nanoclay Masterbatches: 40% Nanomer I.44P + 60% HDPE produced on single screw extrusion lines without any MAH compatibilizer, shown on compression molded sheets. The single screw extruder shows poor dispersion as expected. The Tek-Mix™ product exceeds dispersion from the twin-screw extruder.
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What is Special About Nanoclays?
Fillers of all types are not new to plastic compounding. The introduction of nano-sized particles, though, has generated considerable interest in the plastics industry because of some very attractive performance benefits derived from properly dispersed composite materials. Early claims involving dramatically improved barrier properties, improved flame retardancy, improved stiffnes, as well as improved tensile and flexural properties, have often been unfulfilled because the existing mixing and blending technologies were not sufficient to achieve the necessary dispersions of particles without adding so much pressure, heat, and energy to the operation that the particles agglomerated before the process was completed, and the host resin suffered some molecular degradation.
Fillers of all types are not new to plastic compounding. The introduction of nano-sized particles, though, has generated considerable interest in the plastics industry because of some very attractive performance benefits derived from properly dispersed composite materials. Early claims involving dramatically improved barrier properties, improved flame retardancy, improved stiffnes, as well as improved tensile and flexural properties, have often been unfulfilled because the existing mixing and blending technologies were not sufficient to achieve the necessary dispersions of particles without adding so much pressure, heat, and energy to the operation that the particles agglomerated before the process was completed, and the host resin suffered some molecular degradation.
The Stratek Benefit:
Stratek's Tek-MixTM technology is an excellent complement to conventional mixing and blending methods because its low temperature, low pressure, low shear, and natural ability to achieve particle size reduction and dispersion, offers a mixing enhancement to any single or twin-screw extruder to improve nanoclay dispersion and exfoliation. With the aid of Tek-MixTM technology, single screw extruders can now perform similarly to twin-screw extruders. The resulting benefits from using Tek-MixTM technology to enhance single or twin-screw mixing are:
Stratek's Tek-MixTM technology is an excellent complement to conventional mixing and blending methods because its low temperature, low pressure, low shear, and natural ability to achieve particle size reduction and dispersion, offers a mixing enhancement to any single or twin-screw extruder to improve nanoclay dispersion and exfoliation. With the aid of Tek-MixTM technology, single screw extruders can now perform similarly to twin-screw extruders. The resulting benefits from using Tek-MixTM technology to enhance single or twin-screw mixing are:
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Particle Size Reduction
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Elimination of fine mesh screens
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Reduction in extruder backpressure.
- In many cases, improved physical properties, especially tensile and flexural strength and modulus, both through better dispersion and due to reduction in degradation of the host polymer.
- In certain cases, substitution of untreated neat nanoclay in place of expensive organo-coated clays.
- Substitution of higher strength and higher viscosity carrier resins to increase physcial properties. Using these alternate higher molecular weight resins will provide improved physical properties including the following:
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- Environmental stress resistance
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- Impact strength
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- Abrasion resistance
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- Melt strength
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- Melt viscosity
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For discussions of processing tests the resulting technical data, please see the Stratek Case Histories.
