All about Masterbatches

Masterbatch has become an important part of our everyday life. To enjoy the real benefits of masterbatches, it always better to select the best masterbatch manufacturing company in the industry.

Have you ever thought what properties make plastic the most preferable alternative? Plastic is one of the most important inventions of all times which have completely transformed its usage. Plastics are synthetic petroleum derivatives. It is composed of organic condensation or addition polymers. Other substances can be added to the plastic in order to improve its performance such as color masterbatches, additive masterbatches or for that matter special effects masterbatches.

What is Masterbatches?
Masterbatch is a solid product in which pigments and/or pigments are mixed at high concentration during a heat process with a carrier resin. In this process, the final plastic product obtains the color or properties from the masterbatch. It allows the processor to obtain the color of raw polymer economically while the plastic manufacturing process is being accomplished.

Plastic Masterbatches and its types
In the manufacturing process, realistic colors are achieved. How these colors are achieved? Well, these are done by adding Masterbatch on it. It is added to plastics such as resins in order to achieve required color and performance. Types of Masterbatches: Universal Masterbatch and Specific Masterbatch. Universal masterbatch can hold as many additives while the pigment master batch to color the plastic. In functional polymer additive masterbatch or specific masterbatch, the plastic is made capable of certain performances like making them heat resistant, weather resistant etc. this is more expensive as comparatively to other processes.

Below are some of the benefits of Plastic Materbatches

• •    Cost effective: with the help of masterbatches, you can save a lot of money. It is extremely helpful in coloring the polymers which in turn will benefit the plastic manufacturing companies to save a good amount.
• •    No health issues: while plastic masterbatch is ready to use, it ensures to eliminate the health risk involved in using powder pigments.
• •    Minimal wastage:  when using masterbatches for production, waste produced is set to minimal.
• •    Top-notch quality with the desired color
• With the help of masterbatches, it becomes quite easy to achieve the desired color with complete safety.

It is imperative for the companies that are engrossed in purchasing additive masterbatches, understand the importance of choosing the right kind of masterbatches. Choosing the type and color of the polymer are the two factors which ensure the effectiveness of the polymer additives.

Read More

What makes polymer additives a perfect choice for the plastic industry?

Today, we are all surrounded by plastic. Plastic accounts to cover significant aspects of the daily items we deal with. Majority of our routine activities hover around and are dependent entirely on plastic and plastic products. Every plastic which you encounter in day-to-day life, are formed out of essential polymers. These essential polymers are further blended with suitable additives to obtain a defined characteristic. This is how we get our polymer additives.

With the rise in market demand for polymer additives, many additive manufacturing entities are marking their presence. If you are at the additive buyers ends, you need to seek information regarding the properties of different additives and their respective applications in the plastic manufacturing process.

Few of the critical properties of polymer additives as highlighted by the geniuses are as follows:

 

•     The additives are antimicrobial in action. The antimicrobial properties of additives prevent the plastic and plastic products from its deterioration.
•     These additives are meant to prevent the unnecessary oxidation of plastic polymers brought in by the atmospheric oxygen. If unchecked, oxidation process causes a loss of plastic strength and gives rise to the discoloration of the plastic and plastic products.
•     Additives are further meant to prevent the building up of static electric charges. Owing to its insulating nature, the plastics have a natural tendency to build up static electrical charges on their surfaces. The building up of static electric charges interferes with the process of plastic product manufacturing. It further can give rise to the hygiene-related issues.
•     The polymer additives play a chief role in the manufacturing of softer and more flexible variants of plastic. Additives are the sole contributors of enhancing the product degradability.
•     The use of polymer additives facilitates the processing of plastics and plastic products. Additives are used for enhancing the overall appearance of the finished products. These are the raw materials which makes plastic products safe and sound.
•     While additives have a lot of advantages for the plastic industry, buying those from a trustworthy masterbatch supplier ensures you about the product durability.

Meta: Choosing a polymer additive is one of the most critical decisions in the plastic product manufacturing process as the entire fate of plastic products are dependent on them

Read More

Applications of Color Masterbatches

In place of fully colored compounded materials largely referred to as pre-color, masterbatch is used. For the purpose of coloring of natural polymer with optimum color dispersion and optimum dispersion, the use of color masterbatch is recommended. In this blog we will discuss the effective benefits of using color masterbatches in coloring natural or base polymer instead of using traditional coloring pigments or dyes.

Wide uses of color masterbatch

•     In injection molding, blow molding
•     Drawing, casting
•     Extrusion
•     Plastic toys
•     Plastic electronics
•     Automotive plastic parts
•     Sheet metal
•     Appliance housings
•     Chemical fiber
•     Wires, cables
•     Foam
•     Plastic bags
•     Plastic packaging
•     Sports and leisure goods

The pigment content in color masterbatch is high, bright colors, it has excellent melt-kneading dispersion and is also stable when in use, and the product has the highest mechanical strength retention.

Benefits of color masterbatches

•     The use of color masterbatch in plastic manufacturing applications is usually associated with low stock holding as compared with the use of pure pigments or dyes.
•     Besides this, the use of high grade color masterbatch is usually associated with minimum dispersion of color on the base or natural polymer as compared to pure pigments, dyes or other natural ingredients.
•     In addition to this, the color masterbatch is known to be dust-free.
•     It increases the color strength and gloss
•     Product enhancements and toughening
•     Improves process stability
•     Improves physical properties of the product
•     Purging or cleaning results in huge sum of money when coloring is done by using traditional coloring agents such as natural dyes and pigments. The reduction of the purging or cleaning cost is one of the several benefits associated with using the best grade of color masterbatch.

The color masterbatch is valued for its low cleaning cost as compared to traditional coloring agents, pure pigments and dyes in plastic manufacturing industries. It is a kind of polymer additives.

Read More

Masterbatches with Anti-Oxidants with Unique Uses

 Masterbatches is basic in adding colours or pigments to plastic, and which make the plastic material, usable for different industries. With advancement in technology, masterbatches are available today with addition of anti-oxidants in them, which make the plastic healthy and good for use for the container of edibles. Before learning the uses of masterbatches with anti-oxidants, let us understand what they are.

Antioxidants masterbatches are they type of additive masterbatches which has minimal concentrations of it which helps retarding polymer oxidation and removing the possible de-gradative effects.

Polymers are exposed to the impact of external sources during the process of polymerization.  In addition, this can lead to degradation which further consequence to discoloration, change in viscosity, loss of physical properties, loss of clarity and surface crazing.

Uses of Anti-Oxidants in Masterbatches

• Antioxidants in masterbatches are used to protect polymers present from oxidative degradation during processing and, which are commonly added by resin producers during the process of manufacturing.
• These antioxidants are divided into broad categories of primary, secondary and primary/secondary combination.
• Primary Antioxidants: Those which are used to add finishing to the product and they ensure stability .
• Secondary Antioxidants: Those which are used to protect polymers from oxidation and used for stability.
• Primary/Secondary Combinations: The combination is used to protect polymers during both stages of processing and its service life.

There are different types of anti-oxidants which are used and serve different purposes. One of the many kinds include phenolic primary anti-oxidant which ensure stability and long term heat stability to polymers such as polypropylene, polyethylene, polyamide, polyester, polystyrene, polyurethane and polyvinyl chloride.

These type of polymer additives masterbatches are used in cable industries, reprocessing, blow moulding, pipes, filled compounds, BOPP films, tapes and more.

Anti-oxidants are imperative in masterbatches which ensure the stability of pigments in the product.

Read More