Scratch-Resistant Polypropylene
Problem
Scratch-resistant polypropylene is the “holy grail” for many applications, especially automotive parts. In this case, a major household appliance OEM wanted to replace ABS in vacuum cleaner housings with polypropylene (PP), which is less expensive. The problem with PP is inferior scratch resistance. They had tried for many years to make a scratch-resistant polypropylene (PP) and were well aware of the many traditional approaches. PP is considered greener and is less expensive as well, so there was a big driver to move to PP.
Action
I suggested a completely new approach that had never been tried before. Prior attempts had relied on additives to make the PP more slippery but I had read of a way to make PP with an ultra-hard super high crystallinity surface. It was proven to work in the laboratory but had never been made to work on a larger scale or commercialized. I decided to try it at pilot scale to see whether it would work under manufacturing conditions.
Solution
Surprisingly, the first experiments worked right away giving a hard surface with scratch-resistance at least as good as ABS as proven using the ball mill abrasion test (BMAT) which we had already validated as the most relevant test method. Other advantages were very high gloss, good paintability and stain resistance, properties which have proven useful in other common applications for polypropylene, especially in automotive use. Subsequent work focused on how to optimize the new technique for commercial use, i.e. to make it cost-effective and consistent. That work went well and the results were better than we had hoped for.
This new approach to scratch-resistant polypropylene has attracted attention from several major companies wanting to license it. In the end a Fortune 100 company agreed to license the technology for PP. The license deal was non-exclusive, so this breakthrough is available for other companies and for use with other plastics like polyethylene, nylons, polyesters, high temperature plastics like PEEK and so on.
In addition to scratch-resistant polypropylene, new technologies invented, developed, patented or licensed can be found on the New Products Created page.
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