Increased usage of PP in consumer products demanding several colours drives developments of dispersion agents

PP, currently commanding almost 25% share of the total plastics consumption and still growing at 2 - 3 x GDP growth around the world, plays a significant role in developments of several additives such as clarifying agents or nucleants. Similarly, a huge volume of injection moulded products that find an usage in automobiles, consumer durable as well as non durable segments need PP products in several different colours.

Because of its basically non polar nature, PP, like other Polyolefins is difficult to colour. This in particular is true in comparison with stryenics, the other group of plastics that plays a dominant role in the consumer products sector. It is not only the nature of PP, but also the nature of the pigments that contribute to the colouring factor. Pigments tend to agglomerate easily. Some pigments also have tendency to reagglomerate after getting mixed in the melting process during the conversion process.

To eliminate these agglomeration problems and achieve better dispersion of individual pigment particle, chemicals known as dispersion agents are required. These dispersion agents need to however be compatible with PP matrix. The PP waxes having excellent compatibility with PP obviously meets the primary requirement of a dispersion agent for PP. The finer particle size of PP wax is also desirable to effectively segregate particles of pigments. They also help in reducing binding force of pigments and thus prevents agglomeration. The formation of film across pigments prevents formation of reagglomeration.

The faster melting by lower viscosity wax would help in improving dispersion. No wonder that Micronised PP wax acts as an efficient dispersion agent.

The recent development of Metallocene catalysts has also been adapted for PP wax. Due to uniform control of chain length and sharper melt and drop points, Metallocene PP waxes are found to provide better dispersion compared to micronized PP wax based on Z - N catalysts of same particle size.

It is expected that use of Metallocene PP micronised wax would grow to meet the evergrowing penetration of PP in consumer products to meet the challenge of several colours in the PP products.

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