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Hotel Metropole, Brussels, Belgium, 15-16 September 2004

Rapra Conference Proceedings, 2004

Now in its seventh year, this international two-day conference is firmly established as Europe's premier event for the thermoplastic elastomers industry.

The use of thermoplastic elastomers is developing rapidly into a major success story, both as a replacement for vulcanised rubber and also for totally new applications. Several important factors are driving developments forward such as: legislation on recycling materials in cars and electrical/electronic goods; and continued growth of 'soft touch' applications.

To meet these demands there are many technical developments in hand by TPE manufacturers and compounders such as greater thermal, oxidative and weathering stability; softer grades of premium TPEs; improved properties such as resilience, oil resistance, flammability, smoke emission, fogging, adhesion and transparency; foamable grades; and improved co-processibility. New types of dynamically vulcanized TPEs with improved properties, melt mixing as a low cost route to new types of TPE, and metallocene catalysed polyolefin materials are examples of developments pushing the boundaries even further.

The TPE 2004 conference programme discussed these technical developments and featured expert presentations on key market trends, new application developments and the very latest material innovations.

List of papers

SESSION 1: OVERVIEW

• Paper 1 "The thermoplastic elastomer scene in 2004"
• Mr Barry Statham, Polymer Consultant, UK

SESSION 2: ADVANCES IN THERMOPLASTICS VULCANISATES

• Paper 2 "Changing the game in TPVs, formulating advantages"
• Dr Gary Williams, Du Pont Dow Elastomers, USA
• Paper 3 "New thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) with improved UV resistance and fogging properties"
• Mr Alberto Dozeman, Yundong Wang, Hua Cai & Ryszard Brzoskowski , DSM Thermoplastic Elastomers, The Netherlands
• Paper 4 "New thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) with improved processibility for injection moulding applications"
• Dr Jan-Tom Fernhout, Yundong Wang, Hua Cai & Ryszard Brzoskowski, DSM Thermoplastic Elastomers Inc, USA
• Paper 5 "New developments in TPV"
• Mr Brendan Chase, Advanced Elastomer Systems NV/SA, Belgium
• Paper 6 "150°C heat and oil resistant TPVs - long term fluid and spike temperature comparison"
• Mr Jeff Dickerhoof, Sam Harber & Brian Cail, Zeon Chemicals, USA

SESSION 3: PROCESS OILS

• Paper 7 "Process oils for TPE"
• Dr Arnaud Mahay, Exxonmobil, France
• Paper 8 "Group II process oils"
• Robert Plummer and Gene Robinson, Chevron Texaco Global Lubricants, USA

SESSION 4: RUBBER MARKETS

• Paper 9 "Rubber trends and analyses"
• Mr Darren Cooper, Dr Prachaya Jumpasut & Dock No, IRSG, UK

SESSION 5: AUTOMOTIVE MARKETS

• Paper 10 "Inter-TPE competition in an expanding global automotive market"
• Mr Robert Eller, Robert Eller Associates Inc, USA

SESSION 6: ADVANCES IN STYRENIC BLOCK COPOLYMERS

• Paper 11 "Superior aesthetics performance process - the new generation of TPE"
• Dr Hans Peter Wolf (Germany), Sophie Bechu & Alexis von Tschammer (France), Dow Corning/Multibase
• Paper 12 "New unique HSBC (hydogenated styrenic block co-polymer) with reactive hard blocks"
• Mr Katsunori Takamoto, Kuraray Europe GmbH, Germany
• Paper 13 "Crosslinked SBR in block copolymer compounds to achieve certain EPDM TPV performance"
• Dr Manoj Ajbani, Goodyear Chemical Division, USA

SESSION 7: ADVANCES IN OTHER THERMOPLASTIC ELASTOMERS

• Paper 14 "New test methods for the characterization of thermoplastic elastomers"
• Prof Norbert Vennemann and Klaus Bökamp, University of Applied Sciences Osnabrueck, Germany and Synco De Vogel, Kevin Cai, Satchit Srinivasan(Solvay Engineered Polymers), Germany
• Paper 15 "Phase behaviour and structure of high hard block content polyurethanes"
• Dr Alberto Saiani, University of Manchester, UK
• Paper 16 "Phase-separated microstructures of all-acrylic thermoplastic elastomers"
• Dr Philippe Leclére, Universite de Mons

SESSION 8: DEVELOPMENTS IN PROCESSING

• Paper 17 "The potential of processing additives to improve extrusion performance of TPE-V compounds"
• Dr Lutz Kirchner, Mr Steffen Foese and Dr Joachim Bertrand, Schill & Seilacher "Struktol" AG, Germany
• Paper 18 "TPE in the profiling industry"
• Mr Peter Nagl, LWB Steinl GmbH & Co KG, Germany
• Paper 19 "Mould technology for multi-component injection moulding"
• Klaus Rahnhoefer, Demag Plastics Group, Germany
• Paper 20 "Moulding simulation for the thermoplastic elastomers"
• Wim Schermerhorn, Sigmasoft, Germany