Thursday 27 December 2012

Liquid Crystal Nonwoven from Kuraray


Yasuhiro Shirotani of Kuraray Co., Ltd., Saijo (Japan) said Vecrus™ was a melt-blown nonwoven made from the Vectran™ liquid crystal polymer.  The nonwoven withstood temperatures of 330C and shrunk less than 1% at 260C. Vectran™ is a wholly aromatic polyester made from 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and 2-hydroxy-6-naphthoic acid.  It is used for printed circuit boards, electromagnetic shielding and electric motor insulation.  It’s moisture regain is only 0.002%.  A new version of the melt blown is now being developed with half the standard fibre diameter (3 microns: down from 7) The melt-blown webs will be made in the 3.5 to 20 gsm range and will have a breaking length of over 10 km, double that of the standard Vecrus™

Applications will include fibre reinforced plastics for phones and laptops, Li-ion battery separators, heat resistant wipes in copy machines and heat resistant filters.  In the copy machines the new wiping roll uses a 6gsm 20 micron thick Vecrus™ which gives 3 times the usual length of wiper in the cartridge.

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