On April 22nd, 2018, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Pudong, Shanghai, an ultra-high-temperature expandable microsphere product launch was held by Nanosphere, a world-class new material technology research and development company. The ultra-high-temperature expandable microsphere products with a high temperature resistance of 230 degrees Celsius indicate that the world’s microsphere field is bound to usher in revolutionary innovation.
Many experts and scholars attended the press conference, including Hu Guohua, academician of the University of France, dean of the College of Chemistry and Bioengineering of Beijing Science and Technology University; Chen Zhiliang, expert on the research and application of acrylic acid polymerization and application from East China University of Science and Technology; Wang Xia, fellowship of the Royal Society of England, senior IRC visiting professor of Durham university, the prime principal of many National Key Projects, professor of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.
Firstly, Mr. Zhang Zhihao, the CEO of Nanosphere, introduced:“After many years of in-depth research and innovation, Nanosphere finally break through the bottleneck of research and development in traditional high-temperature microspheres and bring this innovative product of ultra-high-temperature expandable microspheres into the public view. In the R&D and application field of the microsphere, other global top 500 chemical giants have continued to research after commercializing of microspheres in the 1980s, but they are still incapable of making breakthroughs in the commercialization of ultra-high temperature products. This area has been a blank for a long time. However, now the products of Nanosphere fill the gap in this field. “Be inspired, Be future.”The nanosphere Ultra-high-temperature expandable microspheres will lead the transformation and development of the new lightweight materials field, and bring vitality to the sustainable development of both China and the world.
The application of this innovative microsphere product was shared by Sun Weixian, the CTO of Nanosphere. Facing with the lightweight trend of new materials and products, many chemical product manufacturers of engineering plastics are eager to seek new directions for innovation. The advent of ultra-high temperature microspheres will provide them with lightweight new solutions. The addition of ultra-high-temperature expandable microspheres enables the innovation of the lightweight of engineering plastic products. The main engineering plastics include: polypropylene (PP), polyamide (PA, common name: nylon), polycarbonate (PC), and polyoxymethylene (POM), polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon PTFE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), etc. These plastics can be widely used in various fields, including daily necessities, household utensils, industrial spare parts, large injection molded parts, outdoor industrial products, such as trash cans, thin-walled containers, large turnover boxes, motorcycle baffles, vinyl inner barrels and parts, auto parts, general mechanical parts, corrosion-resistant parts, insulating parts, etc. These articles which are ubiquitous in our daily life can be made lightweight via the addition of ultra-high-temperature expandable microspheres.
Ultra-high temperature expandable microspheres (starting temperature 160-190°C, maximum foaming temperature up to 280°C) can be applied to injection molding of thermoplastic materials with a temperature of 230°C or more, such as PP, PC, PA, ABS, etc. During the process of injection molding, the microspheres are thermally expanded to achieve controlled foaming, which helps various thermoplastic materials to generate a uniform closed cell structure whilereducing the density and improving the surface structure and the stability of the finished product. In the injection molding of engineering plastics, the reduction in product density can reach roughly 15-30%, thereby reducing costs. Taking the injection molding of PC materials as an example, without the addition of ultra-high-temperature expandable microspheres, how to reduce weight has become a tough challenge for companies. Now only by adding 2% of ultra-high-temperature expandable microspheres, the density of PC product could be reduced by 30%.
Currently, there are only about 5 companies in the world that are capable of researching and developing microsphere products. As a Chinese R&D company, Nanoshpere has developed top-notch ultra-high temperature microsphere products for the world under the team’s long-term and unremitting efforts. It’s expectable that with the R&D and advent of more and more Chinese technology products, China’s high-end manufacturing is bound to step onto the world stage and truly realize our Chinese dream
