Summary for Compounding World – Feb 29th 2016
IonPhasE Company and IonPhasE® IPE® in brief
IonPhasE is a Finnish company developing and manufacturing static dissipative polymer additives called IonPhasE® IPE®. Company has operations in Finland, China and Korea, and has also distribution network. Company has had significant annual growth in the past years. Strong growth is forecasted to continue due to the technology change and new application areas.
IonPhasE® IPE® belongs to the group of ion conductive polymers and Inherently Dissipative Polymer (IDP). Ion-conductivity ofIonPhasE® IPE® is able to level out charge imbalances in the surfaces and is therefore able to neutralize static fields from the plastic surface even without grounding. In another words, material is able to equalize potential differences, adapt to the changing situation and at the same time prevent high energy discharges in a controlled way.
IDP market
Due to the tightened requirements from the end customers, we can see ongoing technology change in multiple application areas. Traditional ways to control ESD has been by using conductive carbon black, migrating type antistats and conductive/antistatic coatings. Nowadays material cleanliness, low outgassing and contamination are needed in many cases. Also current international standards related to ESD have been adopted by increased amount of end customers. These standards specify measurement conditions to be in 12% RH, 23 degC, which means that low molecular weight, migrating type antistats are not functioning in a such condition.
Colorability, recyclability and other green values have increased importance in the market. These requirements favor IDPs instead of for instance conductive carbon black and coating solutions. Certain regulation developments, with tightened migration limits related to materials in contact with food, are also increasing the use of IDPs.
Nowadays main application areas for IDPs are in electronics / semiconductor industry, chemical and foodstuff packaging, automotive industry and consumer appliances. The growth is seen in all of these segments.
IonPhasE® IPE® product portfolio and competitiveness
IonPhasE® IPE® product portfolio covers the use with wide range of host polymers from polyolefins to super engineering plastics. Various conversion methods are possible from injection moulding to blown and cast extrusion to fiber extrusion. IonPhasE has had special focus on excellent compatibility and processability when developing products. IonPhasE® IPE® is easy to incorporate into compounds.
Some highlights from the product portfolio of ten IonPhasE® IPE® products;
IPE fSTAT and PE0108M FCC are IonPhasE’s flagship products for industrial films and food packaging applications. Products can be used with polyolefins in blown and cast extrusion multilayer films. 3um thin layers are sufficient in bringing stable ESD protection, and thus enabling minimal cost addition to a film.
Growing use for instance in automotive and consumer appliances industry, which have high requirements for the polymer materials due to a long life cycle, sets also new challenges for IDP additive development. Similar mechanical properties, product outlook and resistance against environmental stresses are needed.
Mr Petri Matikainen
VP, Sales & Marketing
Mr Jouni Hillberg
Director, S&M Europe and Americas
Director, Customer Applications