Guest Interview: Michaela Schopp - Product Manager at Henze BNP AG: "Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) can offer a fluorine- and micro plastic-free replacement for the filler PTFE"

Hello everyone and welcome to this guest interview. Today I present to you Michaela Schopp who is product manager at Henze BNP AG, which offers tailor-made product solutions made from hexagonal boron nitride.

In this guest interview we have the chance to learn about hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) powders which can be used to make thermally conductive plastic compounds with electrical insulation, as well as offering an alternative to PTFE for lubrication materials. 

Thanks also to Fabio Daidone, who helped arranging this great exchange!

Enjoy the interview!

Guest Interview with Michaela Schopp from company Henze BNP AG on Boron Nitride fillers for plastics.

1) Tell us about yourself, your current role, and your product offering for the plastics compounding industry.

My name is Michaela Schopp and since February 2020 I am Product Manager at Henze BNP AG, responsible for especially boron nitride (BN) as fillers in plastics.

Henze BNP AG offers a wide range of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) powders for the plastics industry. We have more than 20 powders in our HeBoFill® range, which can be chosen individually for the customers applications.

The choice of powder depends on customer requirement and focus on thermal conductivity, electrical insulation, lubrication or weight reduction due to low density.

2) Let us start with boron nitride for thermally conductive plastics - what is the main working mechanism of such an additive and what are the advantages?

Boron nitride is a remarkable additive for plastics; due to its enormously high intrinsic thermal conductivity, the thermal conductivity of a plastic can easily be increased many times. The special feature compared to other fillers is unique as no other electrically insulating filler has such a high thermal conductivity and is so "soft" at the same time. Most electrically insulating fillers are very abrasive and also significantly heavier than hBN. This is particularly important in industries where thermal management plays a central role, such as in electronics or the automotive industry.

In addition, hBN offers the advantage that it can be dyed as a filler (base color is white) and can basically be incorporated into any plastic, as it is chemically inert.

In general, the overall system can stand out with a beautiful, smooth surface and can have a positive influence on the hardness and resulting in other positive properties.

Henze BNP offers within the HeBoFill® range the HeBoFill® COOL LINE, which is considered the ideal filler for increasing thermal conductivity and  is absolutely pre-destined for these application scenarios.

3) A current challenge in the plastics industry is the search for PTFE alternatives (triggered by the EU regulation 2019/1021) for friction and wear applications such as polymer bearings and power-train components. How can your boron nitride powder help here?

If you look at the property profiles of PTFE, the specialties are its lubricating properties, non-flammability/temperature resistance and often its density. The filler is also characterized by its electrical insulation properties. All these important functions match those of hBN. In this case,  hBN can offer a fluorine- and micro plastic-free replacement for the filler PTFE. 

There are indeed studies in which the lubricating properties of various lubricating fillers, including PTFE, were examined, whereby hBN performed best. 

As the name already states, the HeBoFill® LUB LINE from Henze BNP stands for powder with very good lubricating properties, thanks to its crystal structure. One side effect is a significant increase in the lubricant‘s thermal conductivity. Here, too, the pure white colour of boron nitride powder scores points, as it gives the end product a high-quality appearance - first impressions count.

4) Apart from the modification of plastic compounds for thermal conductivity and low friction, where else boron nitride products are used?

Boron nitride products are mostly used in the form of additives, helping to make a process more durable and efficient. Typical applications are, for example, in the form of suspensions for the coating process - wherever it is hot and good separation is required.  hBN is also available in sintered form and machined into components, which are often used in the high-temperature range, such as furnace construction, PVD systems or sintering technology - it is particularly noticeable here that it is not a single property of hBN that determines whether it becomes the material of choice, rather the combination of at least two attributes that differ from other materials.

HENZE BNP specializes in producing, distributing and developing hexagonal boron nitride products and have become a preferred material for technically demanding applications and innovative industrial application fields.

Henze BNP has therefore created the HeBoSint®, HeBoFill®, HeBoCoat® and HeBoLub® product families.

5) Where can the readers find out more about you and your boron nitride powder offers?

The readers can visit our homepage www.henze-bnp.com or our social media sites, for example LinkedIn, to discover more about our different products and to receive regular updates about the company. Furthermore, we’ve launched the Henze Blog “Focused” where one can find more detailed information about Boron Nitride and its different applications.

That was the guest interview with Michaela Schopp from Henze BNP AG – thank you Michaela and the whole team the exchange on how hexagonal boron nitride can be used for plastic compounds in different areas, especially for thermally conductive materials with electric insulation, as well as an alternative to PTFE. 

Thanks for reading!

Greetings and #findoutaboutplastics

Herwig Juster

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Plastic Multipoint Part Design Data - Thermal Conductivity of Polymers as a Function of Temperature

 Hello and welcome to a new blog post. Today we discuss the thermal conductivity of amorphous and semi-crystalline polymers (unfilled; only the polymer resin) as a function of temperature.

The importance of multi-point data

Multipoint data of different polymer and polymer compound properties prevail information which would otherwise may be overlooked during material selection and product design. 

In other posts we discussed multi-point data such as the DMA results of engineering and high performance polymers. Multi-point data are important for material selection since it has a lot to do with thinking in relationships of time-dependency and temperature-dependency behaviors. Graphically such behaviors can be better accessed. Single point data can lead to misjudgment and negatively impact the material selection process.

Thermal conductivity of polymers was already several times topic on this blog: 

-Thermal conductivity of filled and unfilled high performance polymers

-Thermal conductivity of 96 plastics for EV application design support

-Guest Interview: Max Funck from PlastFormance – “Our patented technology for innovative plastic compounds allows for high filler contents - up to 80% vol.”

-Polymer Chemistry meets A.I. – Finding and Developing New Polymers with Target Properties in the 21st Century

However, in those posts thermal conductivity mostly was discussed as a value estimated at one single temperature. Now we look how the thermal conductivity changes in a temperature range of -150°C and up to 150°C. There is no linear behavior of the different polymers in this temperature range. 

Amorphous polymers: thermal conductivity as function of temperature

Amorphous polymers: thermal conductivity as function of temperature

Semi-crystalline polymers: thermal conductivity as function of temperature

Semi-crystalline polymers: thermal conductivity as function of temperature

Here you can find further design property data of various polymers for your part design and material selection. 

Thanks for reading and #findoutaboutplastics

Herwig 

📚My Polymer Material Selection Book - Available Here

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Literature: 

[1] VDI Wärmeatlas

[2] Griesinger: Wärmemanagement in der Elektronik

[3] Hanser Kunststofftaschenbuch

Guest Interview: Max Funck from PlastFormance – “Our patented technology for innovative plastic compounds allows for high filler contents - up to 80% vol.”

 

Hello and welcome to this guest interview. Today I present to you Mr. Max Funck from specialty compounder PlastFormance. We have the chance to learn about their highly filled compounds to enhance high conductivity (thermal, electrical) and radiation shielding.

Enjoy the interview!

1.         Tell us about yourself, your current role, and about PlastFormance.

Hello Herwig, first of all thank you for featuring us on your blog – we have been following along for quite some time and really appreciate your content. My name is Max Funck and I’m in charge of the operations and business development at PlastFormance. Our startup was founded in 2018, based on a patented technology for innovative plastic compounds. The technology allows us to combine extremely high filler contents (up to 80% vol.) with superior processability in injection-molding.

2.         What is the production technology you developed, what are the challenges and how does your solution look like?

Compared to current compounds on the market we also mix additives, filler particles and polymers – just with significantly higher amounts of filler particles! With an increasing amount of metal or ceramic fillers, the compound inherits the relevant physical properties. For example, our TC compound shows a high thermal conductivity while maintaining electrically insulation. PlastFormance has found ways to address the two limitations in the field: processability and cost. We use a special set of additives which allow a chemical pre-bonding between the particles. In addition, our chemist has developed a system to increase the flowability of the mold significantly. Under injection molding pressure, the melt increases volume and fills smoothly the mold cavity. Since we can reach higher filler contents than the competition, we can also use less expensive filler particles. For example, our thermally conductive compounds fully forego the use of boron nitride.

3.         What are the performance advantages compared to incumbent compounds?

Over 10 years of experience in selection of filler particles allow us to come close to the maximum possible filler content. Since the filler particles are of spherical shape, the relevant physical attribute (e.g. thermal conductivity) is present in all directions of space. Whereas incumbent compounds usually only achieve a higher thermal conductivity in-plane, our materials show an isotropic behavior. The achieved integral conductivity allows for heat dissipation in all directions of the technical component (e.g. heat sinks).

4.         Tell us about the compounds you produce, in particular the TC series, EC series, and RS series? What are the performance attributes?

The PlastFormance technology is broadly applicable and allows for a wide variety of filler-polymer combinations. The TC (thermally conductive) series is primarily used for heat-dissipation tasks – it combines high thermal conductivities of 3-15 W/mK integral with electrical insulation. Based on a special set of graphite types, the EC (electrically conductive) materials offer high thermal conductivities and electrical conductivities. In a recent comparison, the electrical conductivity of our compound even outperformed pressed graphite plates! To me the most fascinating material comes out of our RS series (radiation shielding). We use the heavy metal tungsten as filler to create injection-moldable parts with densities up to 15 g/ccm! Next to its shielding properties of gamma radiation it is simply mind-blowing to see such a heavy material popping out of the injection-molding machine.

5.         What are some application examples and markets you can use such compounds?

Many trending technologies such as electric mobility, fuel cells and microelectronics require innovative and smart material solutions. A sensor housing does not only need to provide moisture protection. It also acts as heat sink, electric insulator and EMI shield. PlastFormance can provide multifunctional solutions while maintaining the design freedom and cost efficiency coming along with injection-molding. In many housing or heat sink applications we offer a smart alternative to die-cast zinc. When it comes to radiation shielding, our materials replace toxic lead in containers used for dismantling nuclear power plants. The radiation shielding products are designed, molded and assembled directly next door in our sister company.

6.         How is the processing of such highly filled compounds? Which processing methods can be used? What are some benefits?

The company roots go back to injection-molding. Our CTO Helmut Aicher is an experienced injection molder and makes sure that every material we create is easy to use with a sufficient processing window on standard injection-molding machines. We have put lots of effort into reducing the abrasiveness to a minimum and we recommend to use equipment for glass-filled plastics. As we are growing, other processing methods have gained more attention. At the moment a team of university students is running trials with additive manufacturing.

7.         What are some of your success factors?

Obviously, we are highly focused on technology at the heart of the company. A close collaboration with our sister company allows us to cover the whole value chain from product idea, to CAD models and simulations, tool-making and injection-molding of final parts. Our customers appreciate the high paste, which we operate in daily. Besides the rather technical features it is really the diversity in our team that drives success.

8. Where can the readers find out more about you and the compounds of PlastFormance?

Feel free to surf our website or reach out directly to us!

That was the guest interview with Max from PlastFormance – thank you Max for the interesting insights into the specialty compounding world!

Greetings and #findoutaboutplastics

Herwig

📚My Polymer Material Selection Book - Available Here

📊 Discover your Polymer Material Selection score by taking quick test here

🎥Join my YouTube channel community 

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What is the thermal conductivity of plastics? Thermal conductivity of 96 plastics for EV application design support

Thermal conductivity of 96 plastics

In emerging electric vehicle applications which includes traction motors, battery cages, and power electronics the focus is kept more and more on the material parameter “thermal conductivity”. Removal of entrapped heat is important due to heat’s high impact on overall system performance. Thermal conductivity is the transfer of heat from one body to another body which is in contact with first. It is measured as W/mK.

The rule of thumb for thermal conductivity in plastics is as follows:

1. For amorphous thermoplastics at 0-200°C, the thermal conductivity lies between 0.125-0.2 W/mK.

2. For semi-crystalline thermoplastics at 0-200°C, values can exceed 0.2 W/mk. Inherently ordered crystalline regions lead to higher thermal conductivity

“What is the thermal conductivity of xyz-plastic?”

I created a table based on published literature, which can support you in quickly accessing thermal conductivity data of different polymers. There are some compounders which have specialized in offering thermal conductive, electrical insulated polymers, reaching over 1 W/mK.

Thermal conductivity of plastics overview

Thank you for reading and till next time!
Herwig Juster

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Literature:
[1] https://omnexus.specialchem.com/polymer-properties/
[2] Saechtling Plastics Handbook