Antistatic - an indispensable additive for plastics

Text/Polymer Meite

What kind of anti-static material are we usually talking about? In fact, you know way, and you are also a material expert. Antistatic additives are chemical additives that can prevent formation of static charges or effectively dissipate static charges with surfactants as active ingredients.

Plastic plastics usually have electrical insulation, so after friction charging, it is not easy to remove, resulting in static electricity. Due to electrostatic attraction, plastic products will absorb dust and other particles from air, which will affect appearance of product, and sticking will occur during plastic film production process. In addition, static electricity can cause distortion of precision instruments and failure of electronic components. In some cases, plastic products must be treated with an antistatic agent to avoid such accidents. Medical protective clothing worn by doctors during an epidemic will generate static electricity due to friction during wearing, so in addition to barrier function, medical protective clothing must also have antistatic properties. A common method is to add antistatic agents.

Second, how to use antistatic agent

Antistatic agent addition methods mainly include internal addition method and external coating method.

Table 2-1 Method for adding antistatic agent

Third, type of antistatic agent

The hydrophilic group in an antistatic molecule is generally a strong polarity group, which can absorb water, form a conductive water layer on surface to conduct static electricity, and can also conduct static electricity through its own functional group. . The lipophilic group usually consists of non-polar strong groups, most of which are long chain carbon structures, and its main function is to improve compatibility between antistatic additives and polymeric materials. According to whether hydrophilic group in molecule can be ionized or not, and the characteristics of ionization, antistatic additives are divided into two categories: ionic and nonionic, and ionic antistatic agents can be divided into cationic, anionic and zwitterionic.

Table 3-1 Types of Antistatic Agents

3.1 Cationic antistatic agent

The cation of a cationic antistatic agent is usually a long chain alkyl group, and most common is a quaternary ammonium salt compound. A common property of cationic antistatic agents is that they have strong adhesion to polymeric materials and are generally used as external antistatic agents.

3.2 Anionic antistatic agent

Anionic antistatic agents are mainly used in PVC and styrene resins, especially when used in PVC, they can also be used as external lubricants, and in some cases they can have a synergistic effect on thermal stability systems. Among anionic antistatic agents, sodium alkylsulfonate is widely used in styrene resin, PVC, PET and PC.

3.3 Nonionic antistatic agent

The molecules of such antistatic agents are not charged, polarity is very low, they usually have a long lipophilic group and are well compatible with resins.

3.4 Amphoteric antistatic agent

Amphoteric antistatic agent mainly refers to a type of ionic antistatic agent that has both anionic hydrophilic groups and cationic hydrophilic groups in molecular structure.

3.5 polymer antistatic agent

Resin type antistatic agent is also called permanent antistatic agent. Resin type antistatic agent is mainly made by adding various hydrophilic polymers to a base resin and processing it to obtain a polymeric permanent antistatic agent.

Fourth, summary

In recent years, due to improvement of quality control of plastic products in country, antistatic agents have become an important additive for polymer materials, and annual demand for them is constantly growing. antistatic agent with good compatibility with our company's products, high temperature resistance, low volatility and high durability to meet needs of product.

Disclaimer: All text/images and other manuscripts marked "Source: XXX" are intended to provide additional information and facilitate industry discussion under this heading and do not constitute agreement with them. The content of article is for reference only. If there is any infringement, please contact us to have it removed. All texts/figures and other manuscripts in which author is indicated at beginning of the article are originals with this heading number, if necessary, it is necessary to obtain authorization with this heading number.