An improved clarifier for PP for extra transparency

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Ciba Specialty Chemicals has recently introduced Irgaclear XT 386, an improved clarifier for PP injection moulded products that could signify extra transparency, ideally designed for PP random copolymer. Ciba claims that this clarifier is required only at 150 PPM compared to the conventional clarifier at 2000 PPM level. Hence, even at 500% more cost it could be a cost effective solution. Due to lower dosage it can offer two distinct following advantages:

		Very low odour
		Very low migration
		Excellent organoleptics

Ciba's study shows that when incorporated in PP random copolymer, the clarifier can reduce the haze to about 10-12%. PP random copolymer at the same thickness would generally give about haze value of 45%. The odour level from about 1.3-1.4 in PP random copolymer increases marginally to about 1.6 or only about 20-25% more. Like other clarifiers, this new clarifier would also reduce cycle time in injection moulding process & thus improve productivity.

The introduction of this new clarifier would bring a strong competitor to the world's best & benchmarked clarifier for clear PP random copolymer products.

It seems that this clarifier is giving comparable haze values to PP random copolymer as that provided by an industry benchmark product called Millad 3988 from Millican Chemicals USA. The key applications for this clarifier are the same as those for Millad 3988 & are: