Momentive Performance Materials (MPM) will feature a wide array of materials, primarily silicone elastomers and hardcoats, for use in a number of applications in the plastics and rubber industries. At the fair, the company will demonstrate its latest advances in LSRs, UV-curing LSR. In partnership with Engel and Elmet, MPM will showcase a demonstration of the UV-curing LSR process for injection moulding by producing a two-component design object.
UV-curing LSR has expanded the range of design possibilities involving multi-component injection moulding. Traditionally, two-component or multi-component designs utilising silicone elastomers had been limited to the combination of heat stable resins such as PA or PBT due to the moulding temperatures that were required to vulcanise the silicone. Now, UV-curing LSR can be combined with more affordable, lower melting point resins, such as PP, enabling new concepts. Designers can explore new integrated material approaches in devices such as valves, syringe components, lab ware, diagnostic devices, catheters, respiratory devices and kitchenware, or they can develop totally new products.
MPM has also developed a fibre reinforced LSR that is said to combine silicone elastomer flexibility with the high strength of textile fibres. This advance can potentially serve as a mono-material concept providing the design freedom and cost-efficient processability of liquid silicone rubber. Targeted at the consumer market, sample testing has indicated that the use of this LSR may be in compliance with applicable FDA regulations and ISO 10993. Fibre reinforced LSR can be a good solution to consider where elastomeric properties have to be combined with high modulus at low elongations. Typically, manufacturers have used dedicated textile reinforcement, either through knitted endless fibres or the addition of textile fabric layers in the composite part production for that type of application.
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