Adding colours to polymers

Various types of colourants are now available in the market today. These compounds highlight the efforts and achievements of specialty chemicals companies in their quest to bring enhanced aesthetic appeal to end-products.

Colour is often the first sensory contact consumers have with a new or existing product they select from a store shelf. Milliken Chemical’s cutting-edge Liquitint polymeric colourants are the perfect solution, providing a broad range of colour options to enhance the value of products providing brand identity, functionality and product appeal. Offering quality, performance, and microbial certification unmatched by dyes or pigments, Liquitint polymeric colourants are ideal for laundry products, household cleaners, institutional and industrial chemicals, and a variety of other aqueous applications.

For eco-friendly formulations
From the R&D lab to the production floor, Milliken experts assist customers in carefully formulating new products, reformulating existing products, and creating brand extensions.

Liquitints are currently used in a variety of eco-friendly formulations with certifications including the EPA's Design for the Environment (now Safer Choice) and independent agencies like Green Seal.

Liquitints are water soluble and not manufactured with heavy metals.  Bright, transparent colour can be achieved with an unlimited colour space. Because Liquitints are completely water soluble due to their polymeric nature, an extremely high concentration of colour can be obtained in water based solutions without a “cloudy” effect. Truly water soluble colourants allow for easy blending, spray application and the possibility of in-line dosing. This eliminates the hazardous dust associated with powder dyes.

Milliken team carefully designed Liquitints to reduce or eliminate staining on most hard surfaces, skin, fabrics, and equipment. This means the finished household cleaning product does not leave stains of its own.  Liquitints allow for the utmost colour stability on the store-shelf providing a consumer confidence unmatched by powder dyes and pigments

Liquitint colourants are designed to be compatible with most cationic, anionic, non-ionic, and quarternary systems. (Additionally they can be used in conjunction with fragrances and preservatives, without complexing or destabilizing the mixture.)

Adding value to consumer products 
A family of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) for consumer products provides vivid colour, tactile appeal, and soft-grip ergonomics while spanning a broad range of physical properties and exhibiting excellent mouldability was introduced by Teknor Apex Company.

Monprene® CP Series compounds are standard products available in identical formulations to customers in North America, Europe, and Asia. Two series are available: Monprene CP-10100 low-density compounds, with specific gravity of 0.89; and Monprene CP-11100 high-density compounds, with specific gravity of 1.15. Initially each series is comprised of six grades with Shore A hardness ranging from 40 to 90.  

With a light hue in natural form, Monprene CP Series compounds exhibit excellent colourability. All grades are suitable for skin contact and are resistant to cosmetics and household chemicals. When over-moulded onto a rigid substrate, they provide a soft grip with ergonomic benefits.
 
The high-flow properties of Monprene CP Series TPEs make them suitable for a wide range of part shapes and sizes in injection, insert, and two-component moulding. They exhibit excellent adhesion to polyolefins.
 
Teknor Apex recommends Monprene CP Series compounds for grip, handle, cushion, anti-skid, anti-vibration, knob, and button applications in such products as writing instruments, sporting goods, appliances, tools, personal care items such as toothbrushes and razors, and flexible or soft items like toys.  

Teknor Apex has also brought into the market its TekTuff™ PS colourants. The impact-modified concentrates enhance the toughness of styrenic polymers while imparting the same bright colours available with corresponding unmodified concentrates.

TekTuff™ PS concentrates increased impact strength by 45 to 90%, depending on use level, in ASTM D5628-10 falling dart tests conducted by Teknor Apex. “This is in addition to our functional concentrate product line,” says John Wood, technical manager, Teknor Color Division.  The concentrates are recommended for housewares, toys, disposables, and packaging. They are available on a custom basis, including new coluor matches as well as any existing colour.
 
The introduction of TekTuff PS concentrates follows last year’s announcement of a TekTuff series of colour concentrates for providing impact resistance in polyolefins.   

 

Wider colour choices
 Ampacet Corporation has introduced FusionFx, four exciting colour palettes that use proprietary technology to produce random flow of colour effects. These effects enable designers to literally create a one-of-a-kind product that celebrates individual expression and the raw beauty found in nature's imperfections.

FusionFx infuses colour at random into an injection-moulded PP part.  From a camouflage-look fishing tackle box, to a plastic outdoor table suggesting the hefty weight of granite, to a trash can with the tactile look of cork, to toys speckled with vibrant colours, FusionFx presents endless opportunities for creativity.  Applications, limited only by the imagination, include sporting goods, housewares, caps and closures, toys, personal care/cosmetic products, appliances, sports vehicles and accessories and outdoor furniture.   

The four palettes, Carnival, Cork, Camouflage and GeoClassics, suit a wide range of product applications. Carnival combines the spontaneity of brightly-coloured confetti with the use of unanticipated and explosive accents for high-energy fun; Cork imbues products with the look of calming, yet powerful and imperishable natural wood elements; Camouflage grabs the spotlight by revealing breathtaking nature-mimicking effects; and GeoClassics takes cues from the rugged and bold look of granite, concrete and quartz to give even a lightweight plastic product the visual weight of stone.

Each of the four FusionFx palettes has six standard variations.  The FusionFx palette offerings utilise several colours from our 14 colour product line.  The full product line includes ROYGBIV colour spaces, along with special effects, making customisation options virtually limitless.