Polymer made of renewable raw materials

AKRO-PLASTIC closes the gap  between PA6/PA6.6 and PA 12 with the new PA 6.10

The company AKRO-PLASTIC GmbH, known as specialist for innovative and application-oriented plastic compounds for more than 20 years, further completes its portfolio with the newly developed PA 6.10.

 

“As a matter of fact, the concept of developing Polyamides using the basis of Sebacic Acid is not a new one,” according to Harald Sauer, Key Account Manager at AKRO-PLASTIC. During the fifties, such products were developed and commercialised. However, those were positioned as niche products on the market, as the major industrial production of standard materials had pressed ahead.”

 

The interest in materials based on renewable raw materials has steadily grown over the last few years, even in the area polymer processing. Due to this fact, AKRO-PLASTIC being focussed on development of polyamide specialities, started to develop a Polyamide 6.10 utilising renewable raw materials. As a result of this move, interest in these materials is regenerated. The new AKROMID® S consists of approximately 60 % renewable raw materials. Castor oil extracted from seeds of the castor oil plant form the building blocks for Sebacic Acid, which itself is the basis for the renewable raw material constituent of the polymer.

 

“With our AKROMID® S, we fulfil the common definition of a biological compound. However, our product is not biodegradable unlike several materials being used in the packaging industry today. This behaviour is definitely not sought after when employing technical polymer compounds. In this case, high consistency of materials lasting the whole life time of the part is absolutely necessary – a requirement that cannot be fulfilled by a degradable compound”, explains Leander Bergmann, Head of Marketing at AKRO-PLASTIC. “By using these organic raw materials, already having extracted CO2 from the environment during their period of growth, the CO2 balance of the material is more favourable in contrast to fossil based raw materials”, Leander Bergmann adds.

 

Technically, PA 6.10 closes the gap between PA 6, PA 6.6 and PA 12. It is characterised by significantly reduced moisture absorption in contrast to PA 6 and

PA 6.6. Typical values at 70 °C and 62 % relative humidity are for PA6 3% and 2.2 %

for PA6.6, dependant on the reinforcement level. With only 1.2%, AKROMID® S3 GF 30 1 only shows about half of the moisture absorption and can therefore be considered as an engineering material for cases, where high dimensional stability is required. Besides enhanced low-temperature impact strength, the product shows a very good chemical and hydrolysis resistance due to its polymer structure. However, the processing characteristics of this product correspond to that of a PA 6.

 

 

Due to these characteristics and the technical features of AKROMID® S, the product is ideally suited for the following application areas:

  • High precision components in technical apparatus construction as well as in precision engineering
  • Technical parts in vehicle construction, as for example media pipes as well as media containers
  • Connectors in vehicle electronics
  • Connecting elements and plugs in photovoltaic as well as in solar thermal energy.

The product portfolio currently consists of an unreinforced variant and several glass-fibre reinforced grades of 15 to 50 %.