Vol 17, No-l, Page 12

REINFORCED POLY- ARYLAMIDES

These materials by Solvay are becoming established in the electrical, electronic and furniture sectors. Trade named IXEF,the consumption is more or less divided between metal replacement and replacement for other engineering plastics. The public transport sector is said to be one of the most promising applications, according to the company, where it is used in the manufacture of vandal-proof bus seats. A 30% glass reinforced grade is used to encapsulate a core of metallic mesh.

Mod. Plast. Int., 1986, 16, (Oct.), 20 -

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN There has been a growing interest in the use of metallic pig- METALLIC PIGMENTS ments in organic based systems for the production of conductive FOR CONDUCTIVE coatings. One of the most effective ways of achieving EM1 APPLICATIONS shielding is by using a conductive organic coating on the

interior of the equipment housings. The initial use of this type of pigment was in a paint vehicle such as an air drying acrylic. This led to the realisation that this type of tech- nology could be used for applications other than shielding and metallic pigments are now incorporated into plastics, rubbers and inks to produce conductivity. A number of properties are important when considering the suitability of the pigment for incorporation into such a coating. These properties include: electrical conductivity, chemical, morphological, and com- patibility with the coating system. This article deals with two particular areas of development in which significant advances have been made recently 11 the variation in morphology of nickel pigments and 21 the production of a range of coated products.

Poly. Paint Cal. J., 1986, 176, (May 281, 416

EM1 SHIELDING There are a number ofways in which plastics composites can be made sufficiently conductive to allow them to be used in large enclosures for electronic equipment where shielding against electromagnetic radiation or electrostatic discharge control is required. The Production Engineering Research Association (PERA) conducted a survey to investigate the relative technical and economic merits of these techniques and produced a report in 1984. This showed that there was an almost complete lack of proven application information or realistic comparative test data. The Association therefore s'et up a further project to provide independent cost/performance data from practical evaluation trials and case studies. In this project, thirteen different types of conductive coating and four conductive materials were evaluated using two representative mouldings 1)

(cont'df

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