While more standard plastic additives such as thermal and light stabilizers define the longevity of a plastic application, functional additives provide various effects which give a specially wanted functionality to the finished good.
Functional additive substances are added during the manufacturing process, in general through masterbatches and compounds but also very efficiently by direct dosing during the manufacturing of the finished end use article.
They influence specific properties of the final application by giving the new product characteristics like flame retardancy or improved mechanical strength, clarity, or brilliance amongst others. In doing so, they help plastic to expand its range of application and value. Functional additives offered by BASF include flame retardants, antistatic agents, surface modifiers, rheology control and anti-scratch additives, clarifiers, and nucleating agents.
Flame retardants prevent ignition or spread of flame in plastic material. Plastics are used in building and construction, electrical and transport applications that must meet stringent fire safety standards.
Plastics insulate and so can build up static charges on the surface which disturb processing procedures and can be an issue for hygiene and aesthetics. Antistatic agents help polymers or plastics applications to prevent the buildup of static electric charge in plastic materials.
Clarifiers and nucleating agents, depending on their use enhance the clarity and brilliance of transparent finished goods, or positively influence mechanical properties as well as having a positive influence on processing speed and production efficiency.
Anti-scratch additives reduce not only the scratch width, depth, and visibility, but the highly stable additives offer no negative impact on parts including low visible bloom, low odor and maintained gloss.
Rheology modifier allows a controlled degradation of polypropylene during extrusion processing and significantly increases the melt flow rate with the possibility to tailor melt-flows to the needs of specific processes and applications.
Fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs) or optical brighteners are colorless to weakly-colored organic compounds that, when applied to a plastic, absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit most of the absorbed energy in the visible violet-to-blue fluorescent light. The objectives for using fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs) in plastics are the following:
- Improvement or masking of the initial color of plastics, which are often slightly yellowish
- Production of brilliant white end use articles
- Increase of the brilliancy of colored and black pigmented articles
- Use as tracer molecules
