Tosaf geared for sustainability at FAKUMA

At FAKUMA 2021 in Friedrichshafen, Tosaf /Afula, Israel, and its German subsidiary Tosaf Color Service, Karlstein, will highlight sustainability geared solutions in their wide range of functional, colour and combi-masterbatches for extrusion and injection moulding.

These will include colour masterbatches for recyclates with a special focus on post-consumer plastics as well as biodegradable masterbatches. Another focus will be on e-mobility and electronics applications. A third key issue will be light diffuser solutions for polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC), including coloured grades. These fully harmonise the appearance of covers for light sources with the colour of the surrounding frame or car body colour, making them virtually invisible until illuminated.

Due to source-related inconsistencies, recyclates from post-consumer scrap can show significant differences in their basic colour. Tosaf has developed highly efficient masterbatches, specially tailored to cover such variations in a way that the final products meet the customers’ specifications within tight tolerances.

Biodegradable polymers can provide sustainable alternatives to conventional grades, and this is particularly true for agricultural films. Typically, such films are manufactured with additives to provide specific functionalities ranging from UV stability to antifog and IR filtering effects. Tosaf has developed appropriate additive masterbatches based on biodegradable carriers such as polylactic acid (PLA) and resin (rosin).

Going beyond traditional E&E applications, e-mobility defines new and demanding requirements. One of these is the need for polymers that maintain their orange warning colour virtually unchanged throughout the life of a vehicle. Tosaf has set a worldwide benchmark with such a colour masterbatch according to RAL 2003 for polyamides (PA6 and PA66), polypropylene (PP) and polybutylene terephthalate (PBT). The PA masterbatches were successfully tested at 130°C for 1,000 hours without darkening. All grades are available with or without a laser marking additive for identification purposes.

Punctual LED light sources are widely used to illuminate large outdoor advertising boards, car parks and outdoor roads, as well as small control panels in car interiors. This creates a growing need for translucent decorative covers with light scattering properties for a uniformly backlit surface. Tosaf has developed special light-diffusing (LD) masterbatches, especially for polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC). In addition to colour-neutral grades, combinations with specific colourings and other functional properties such as UV stabilisers are also available.