New Baypren grades with improved crosslinking characteristics announced

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Leverkusen, Germany - Thanks to technical additions to its Baypren production facility in Dormagen, specialty chemicals company LANXESS is set to expand its synthetic rubber portfolio to include some products that were previously not technically feasible. The first additions are to include the new polychloroprene Green Finishing grades Baypren GF M02D VP and Baypren GF M22D VP. Compared to their “conventional” counterparts from the LANXESS portfolio, the new Baypren variants are characterized by optimized crosslinking characteristics and could contribute to more cost-effective injection molding of technical Baypren molded parts. The variants were developed for vulcanization with the crosslinking reagent N-methyl-thiazolidine-2-thione (MTT) and deliver outstanding results, thus expanding the spectrum of polychloroprene rubbers available. “Crosslinking is naturally an extremely crucial step in rubber production,” explains Dr. Klaus Zander, head of Global Marketing Baypren in the LANXESS High Performance Elastomers business unit. Polychloroprene rubbers are generally vulcanized with either N-methyl-thiazolidine-2-thione, MTT, or ethylene thiourea, ETU. “On vulcanizing Baypren GF M22D VP with MTT, we are achieving vulcanization profiles that are very close to perfect,” explains Urban Dinges, head of Global Technical Marketing Baypren. In particular, the profiles of the vulcameter curves show a stable plateau after just a short space of time, which indicates the formation of a stable network. No marching modulus is observed. The vulcanizate properties are also impressive. When compared to specimens made from standard-variant Baypren 210 and Baypren 110, specimens made from Baypren GF M22D VP and Baypren GF M02D VP demonstrated comparable tensile strength profiles in laboratory tests, despite slightly lower network density. “Overall, Baypren GF M02D VP and Baypren GF M22D VP represent two very promising additions to the toolbox of polychloroprene users,” says Dinges. “They not only enable a high level of MTT crosslinking, but also result in far easier processing in injection molding, making production more cost-effective and proving themselves in the end product. We believe that several new applications for polychloroprene will develop thanks to our new Baypren GF grades.”

(Source: Rubber World)