West Conshohocken, PA, USA - June 26, 2009 - To further enhance its position as the leading manufacturer of PEEK-based films, Victrex has installed a new high temperature vacuum laminating press system at its manufacturing facility in the Lancashire, United Kingdom. With this addition, Victrex now has the capability of bonding its APTIV™ film, produced from VICTREX® PEEK™ polymer, to a wide range of other substrates without the use of adhesives. “The press enables us to take advantage of APTIV film’s unique thermoplastic nature which allows it to be heat-laminated to other substrates,” explained John Getz, Global Commercial Leader - APTIV Film. “In effect, we are melting the APTIV film in a very controlled manner to allow it to intimately bond to other substrates including metals, fabrics, itself and other polymer films.”
The press system operates at temperatures up to 400°C (752°F), which allows the APTIV film to be joined to other substrates in the melt phase. “The system is unique in that it has the high temperature capability to work with the film,” said Getz. “It can also operate under vacuum preventing any entrapment of air bubbles and voids in the laminates.” The system features sophisticated controls including programmable cycles of temperature, press force and vacuum by time or other parameters, as well as highly accurate platen pressure control – allowing a wide range of low to high pressure profiles as demanded by the application. Laminate sizes up to 500mm x 600mm are possible.
This new capability will allow customers to develop applications combining the inherent properties of APTIV film with other materials such as metal foils or non-woven fabrics and meshes to produce laminate materials with exceptional combinations of properties. “The addition of lamination capability will allow us to support the validation and development process more quickly and efficiently as opposed to having the customer find an outside laminator who may not have the capability or capacity to support the development effort,” said Getz. “We can help develop and optimize the laminate structure and lamination process by combining APTIV film with other materials. After this development work is complete the customer can then pass this information along to his production laminator. Victrex also expects to directly support production laminators who are looking to develop new APTIV film-based laminate structures. We encourage customers to contact us if they have interest in our lamination resources so we can mutually assess these opportunities.”
APTIV film is produced from VICTREX PEEK polymer, which is widely regarded as one of the highest performing thermoplastics in the world, and provides all of the polymer’s properties including: high temperature performance, excellent chemical, wear and hydrolysis resistance, superior mechanical properties, excellent barrier (permeation) and electrical properties, exceptional radiation resistance, high purity, low toxicity of combustion gases, etc., in a flexible, thin format.
Comments