Preventing from material contamination

What it is:

Material contamination occurs when small fragments of previous polymer are included with the parts produced. Visually, it may look like an overlay, an inclusion, or a spot. Material contamination can generate both visual and mechanical failures.

Causes:

Material contamination typically follows a difference in chemistry, additive content, viscosity, specific gravimetry, or processing temperature. For example, an incompatible polymer may flow over another material without bonding to it, and if this occurs, a heavy chemical structure (e.g. polymer with glass fibers) is very challenging to evacuate with a light chemical structure. Incompatibility will generate pollution, mechanical alteration, or polymer alteration for a period. Scrap parts cannot be recycled due to the presence of an incompatible polymer, which results in a waste of polymer, time, and energy.

Solutions:

Purging compounds, due to their versatile processing spectrum and improved polymer compatibility, allow machines to achieve faster material changes without the occurrence of contamination from a previous polymer or incompatible polymers.

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