The material bonds an acrylic layer onto a TPO substrate for use in thermoforming applications. The pelletized material can be coextruded with a TPO substrate, to which acrylic film rollstock can be laminated inline. Sheet producers can also triextrude each of the three materials — acrylic, tie layer, and TPO — from the melt phase to produce a multilayer sheet.
Color can be added into an acrylic/ TPO sheet in the opaque tie layer. With the acrylic layer free of pigment, it provides optimum gloss, depth of image, and scratch resistance, and its performance properties can be easily controlled. The sheets could replace painted metal in some applications, reducing the need for dies and machinery and eliminating the cost of painting, as well as volatile- organic compounds associated painting processes.
Both major forms of scrap — the line-trim from the sheet extrusion and the trim removed after the forming of the final shape — produced in the sheet-producing process can be recycled back into the TPO substrate.
Solvay Engineered Polymers Inc.
1200 Harmon Rd.
Auburn Hills, MI 48326
(248) 391-5888
solvay.com