JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #86 - January/February 2014 - 57

PVC

Cost-effective rigid vinyl composites
reinforced with long fibres
New technologies without shearing are now available
to produce PVC composites reinforced with very long
continuous fibres, setting PVC as a premium choice for
cost-efficient thermoplastic composites

By

ClAudine BlOyAert, teChniCAl MArketing
& develOPMent MAnAger vinyl sPeCiAlties
sOlvin

C

omposites currently tend to invade our
everyday life and surround us in every
situation without us even noticing the
substitution of traditional materials by more
complex, hybrid ones demonstrating superior properties such as low weight, corrosion
resistance and sustainability. They are highly
instrumental in helping achieve significant
energy savings.
In the composites landscape, most materials
(>85%) are currently based on thermosets
with limited recycling possibilities and
adaptability. However, the market share of
thermoplastics is progressively rising, mainly
due to their greater flexibility to adapt to requirements. So far, PVC has not been a key
player in the long-fibre composites market
because it had to overcome a major technical
hindrance. PVC is being used in short-glass
or natural-fibre composites but the necessity
to gelate the polymer by shearing has restricted its use in long-fibre composites.
This paper describes a new technology to
gelate PVC without shearing by impregnation in waterborne PVC latex nanoparticles
and briefly mentions another method
described in a previous JEC article (No.60),
based on copolymer and PVC resins with
very low molecular weight.

PVC
PVC has a number of intrinsic properties.
It is a self-extinguishing material which,

combined with glass fibres, results in highly
fire resistant products. It also has a relatively
high modulus compared to other thermoplastics such as polyolefins, and is easily
thermoformed and recycled. It is versatile,
allowing the production of very soft to very
rigid products.

Disruptive innovations

Tab. 1: FibroVin characteristics

Thickness

The second technology is based on the
impregnation of fibres with a formulated
waterborne vinyl latex branded NanoVin®.
NanoVin® is a dispersion of PVC nanopar-

1.5

Fibre content

%

40

Length of fibres

mm

100
1.66

Density
Falling dart impact impact strength (6kg - 1m
- 20mm) at -20°C (-4°F)

This paper describes two ground-breaking
technologies for the production of structured rigid composites.
The first technology - named FibroVin -
was co-developed by Fibroline and SolVin
to avoid the destruction of long fibres
during processing. It consists in electrostatic
dispersing the dry blend in chopped glass
fibres (5-10 cm long) before gelation in a flat
calender. This results in a plate with isotropic
properties in the plane (see table 1). This
technology is based on a dry blend made of
very-low-molecular weight PVC and VC/
VAC copolymers. The technology and
some preliminary results were described
in a previous JEC magazine article (No.60
- October 2010). The latest mechanical
properties measured on plates manufactured with enhanced recipe and process are
presented here. The plates can be produced
by Fibroline with SolVin® resins.

mm

J/mm

14.0

Tensile properties
Modulus

GPa

15.0

Elongation at break

%

2.1

Tensile strength

MPa

200

Heat deflection temperature
(1.8MPa - flatwise)

°C

78

ticles in water, mixed with additives such as
stabilizers and emulsifiers. This is a very fluid
product (dynamic viscosity < 30mPa.s) that
can be used as a very thin coating layer (see
Figure 1) or for the impregnation of fibres
(see Figure 2).

Fig. 1: Extra thin layer (10µm) of NanoVin® on a
silicon substrate

No86 January - February 2014

/ jec composites magazine 57
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #86 - January/February 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #86 - January/February 2014
