Polyolefins in general, and polyproylene in particular, are one of Gabriel Chemie’s specialist sectors for halogen free flame retardants, providing masterbatches for extrusion and injection moulding applications with demanding fire safety and technical specifications such as stadium seats (see pinfa Newsletter n°44), films for aviation transport, construction, mining industry. PIN flame retardants, combined with specific recipes of other additives, need to offer performance such as anti-UV, colour stability under ageing or transparency, and the masterbatcher has to guarantee to the customer that requirements will be fulfilled. Specific additives are also selected to improve processing. A challenge for PIN FRs can be cost compared to legacy halogenated FRs. Gabriel Chemie is already processing recycled plastics granules, and interest is today developing with customers. The overall wide variety and number of different additives is a challenge for masterbatchers. PIN FRs can be sensitive to the presence of other additives, so that an FR which is effective in virgin material may achieve the same fire performance in post-consumer recycled granules. The quality of sorting of recycled plastics is thus critical.
Gabriel Chemie, founded in 1956, offers masterbatches for plastics, including both colours and functional additives such as fillers, anti-flame, antistatic, processing and performance additives and laser marking, with services including formulation advice, production support, compound production laboratory testing. The company has operations in ten countries in Europe and in Russia and customers worldwide. http://www.gabriel-chemie.com