COURSE OVERVIEW

 

This practical and highly-interactive course includes real-life case studies and exercises where participants will be engaged in a series of interactive small groups and class workshops. 

 

Plastic additives are a diverse group of specialty chemicals that are either incorporated into the plastic product prior to or during processing, or applied to the surface of the product when processing has been completed. These additives aid in the actual processing of the plastic end product (e.g., antioxidants, nucleating agents, mold release agents, lubricants) or improve the characteristics of the final product (antimicrobials, colorants, antistatic agents, impact modifiers, and UV stabilizers). 

 

Plastics additives account for 15 to 20% by weight of the total volume of plastics products marketed. The growth in use of these additives is relatively strong and continuous. However, environmental constraints have imposed rigorous performance requirements on many products, adding expenses to the development costs of these materials. A new trend is the development of biobased additives for bioplastics. It is expected that bioplastics will grow 50% by 2021. 

   

This course provides the basic and specific information needed to employ the best additives in manufacturing situations. The course starts with a presentation of the structures of polymers for a better understanding of the ways to stabilize a plastic material against degradation due to thermal, mechanical or UV-degradation or other detrimental mechanisms. A presentation of the most common plastic materials and how they should be handled during processing is included. This is important to obtain the desired properties for a product. However, the quality and the short as well as the long-term properties can be improved by the correct choice of additives. This will be highlighted during the extensive presentation of available additives on the market and the mechanisms for their function. Further, the course will cover the analytical tools (DSC, TGA and Mass Spectrometry) and many of other instrumental techniques for identification and structure elucidation of plastics additives, e.g., antioxidants, stabilizers, plasticizers, pigments, UV-stabilizers. 

 

This state-of-the-art course is designed to provide an overview of many additives used to produce the huge array of today’s commercial polymeric materials. However, the participants will also learn which tools are available for trouble-shooting. Discoloration and poor UV-resistance are only two examples of common problems, which are often encountered. The aid of statistical methods will also be presented as well as alternatives to additives. Environmental issues are dealt with due to detrimental migration of additives, health risks with halogenated additives as well as consequences of plastic recycling and the restabilization of polymers with additives. Discussions will include additive functionality and how to select additives to meet the desired end-product properties and manufacturing process requirements.