KRAIBURG TPE TECHNOLOGY (M) SDN. BHD.

KRAIBURG TPE is enthusiastically developing TPE solutions for consumer electronics to meet new trends that focus on sustainability, safety, and functionality. Thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) are fast gaining popularity among industry players thanks its durability, flexibility, and reliability in consumer electronics applications – including a wide range of products and devices for entertainment, communication, and recreation.

Designing for Flexibility and Consistency
KRAIBURG TPE’s compounds offer a variety of material solutions for the consumer electronic markets. These include good mechanical properties such as resistance to scratches, abrasions, and chemicals, and allow for colourful and soft-touch designs. The compounds are also free from heavy metals and other substances like latex, PVCs or phthalates to assure hazard-free use of the devices among the consumers.

Furthermore, to ease safety concerns, KRAIBURG TPE has selective TPE compounds, certified as per the UL94HB flammability, which determines the material’s burn rate once ignited to prevent a fire risk.

Typical consumer electronic applications include watch and wrist bands, headphones, ear tips, game consoles, wireless automatic sensor, car phone holders and chargers, virtual reality (VR) devices, remote controls, and more.

Assortment of color options available
Besides benefiting from the compounds that display a wide processing window, KRAIBURG TPE offers worldwide color consistency quality, with various colorability options available for consumer electronic product designers and manufacturers.
Further reading

KRAIBURG TPE, a global TPE manufacturer brings its latest THERMOLAST® K AD1/AP series with improved design advantages and solutions to the Asia Pacific automotive interior and industrial parts market.

New TPE on the block: AD1/AP series
The AD1/AP series compounds is a fresh addition to KRAIBURG TPE’s THERMOLAST® K compound series family. They are primarily suited for sophisticated hard-soft composite components with high requirements in relation to surface quality.

With hardness range between 60 to 80 Shore A, the AD1/AP series produces even surfaces with two component injection molding. Furthermore, it offers good adhesion with PC, ABS and SAN and comply with the low odor and emission requirements for automotive interiors. It also has good processability and improved surface aspect.

KRAIBURG TPE’s compounds can be easily processed through the multi-component injection molding process to achieve the best adhesion property. Meanwhile, insert molding allows for more leeway to greater innovation possibilities in the designs of components.

Available in black color, the AD1/AP series is an ideal material solution for automotive interiors and industrial parts applications such as handles for tools and power tools.

Winning design, a plus factor
To meet sophisticated automotive aesthetics appeal, the THERMOLAST® K series also features enhanced UV resistance, and scratch and abrasion resistance suitable for an interior application in car mats, cup holders, door sills, and more.

Project Manager of KRAIBURG TPE, Marcus Cheah, says, “Our TPE compounds, with the two-component molding capabilities, allow for more innovation and possibilities for plastic parts designs. They improve soft-touch elements and reduce the annoying, rattling and creaking noise when used as damping elements. Our low-odor and low emission TPE solutions meet the high requirements for OEM automotive interior applications.”
Further reading

The 3D printing process has in recent years been making great strides in the automotive, medical, industrial and consumer markets. A process that was once limited to prototyping, 3D printing is today more often being used for small batch production and to manufacture spare parts.

Thus, the evolving 3D printing technology, which is implemented in an open material feed system, provides enormous potential for significant savings of time, work and costs involved in developing new applications.

TPEs or thermoplastic elastomers are now being used as 3D printable materials for the additive manufacturing industry, especially when soft polymers are required.

KRAIBURG TPE, a global TPE manufacturer, offers a broad slate of TPE compounds with a wide range of features, making them a suitable choice for various applications when it comes to 3D printing.

KRAIBURG TPE also offers compounds with a wide range of TPE hardness, from super soft <10 Shore A to 66 Shore D.

TPEs for customization
The 3D printing technology allows the ability to customize designs to suit the specific needs of products. This is where KRAIBURG TPE’s THERMOLAST® K product series comes into the picture.

The THERMOLAST® K TPE compound allows the possibility for customization and different properties in the 3D printing process – like haptic surface touch for handles or low surface friction for smooth parts.

Furthermore, extremely detailed surfaces can be produced with very soft TPEs. Another benefit is that a variety of color options are afforded with TPE compounds, allowing the freedom of design flexibility.

For industry sectors that are looking at improving a product’s impact on the environment, TPEs are a specifically good choice as the materials are recyclable. The compounds are also free of latex, PVC and phthalates, and feature low odor and reduced emissions.

Prototyping made easy with TPEs
The 3D printing technology is gaining popularity for products that are targeted at outdoor activity usage and prototyping, especially in high-performance applications. KRAIBURG TPE’s compounds offer excellent UV and weather resistance, enabling the materials to withstand the harsh environment and climate.

Possible applications for KRAIBURG TPE’s compounds are fasteners, gaskets, seals, adapters, handles, grips and more.

Other advantages of KRAIBURG TPE compounds are that they are well established with numerous certifications. For example, for the consumer market, KRAIBURG TPE compounds are in compliance with various regulations and approvals such as China’s GB standards (中国国标), EU Directive 10/2011, the EN71/3 European safety standard for toys, as well as the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 21.

Medical and healthcare industry
As a result of the high regulations regarding safety in the medical industry, TPEs are the perfect choice.

Furthermore, KRAIBURG TPE’s compounds comply with recognized medical standards such as USP Class VI, DIN ISO 10993-4,-5,-10,-11, and VDI 2017 Medical Grade Plastics.

Offered in the range of compounds is the THERMOLAST® M, which is a specially developed medical-grade TPE for medical, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic applications.

Possible applications of the THERMOLAST® M compounds include masks, straps, fastness, seals and more.
Further reading