How To Use Plastic Color Concentrates? Follow These Tips To Improve The Results
The color concentration- color masterbatch is very popular nowadays, this becomes the critical raw material, which appears in most of the products in our daily life such as toys, cans, bags,…. The applications are large but their designers and brand owners understand the importance of choosing the right color to ensure their products stand out from the competition. Yet they often may not have enough fundamental knowledge and awareness to produce quality colored plastic parts and turn to their processing partners for help. Therefore, in this study, I would like to share some most principles which should apply to use plastic color concentrates technologies to give their products a boost.
What is the Plastic color concentrates?
Plastic color concentrates are plastic colorants or color masterbatch in a pellet or grain that manufacturer form into plastic. Rather than adding a colored layer to the outside of a plastic product, concentrates make up the product.
To create a concentrate, a pigment is mixed with a polymer or carrier resin. For concentrates to work, the polymer must work with the base resin that the concentrate mixes with. The challenging aspect of concentrates is the lack of a universal polymer. Developers must identify the best polymer and base resin for production.
Why use Plastic Color Concentrates?
There are various advantages of using Color Masterbatch such as:
- Increase of productivity 10%-30%
- Power consumption reduction
- Conductive to cleaner and safer environment
- Thermal conductivity improvement
- Increase of the anti-blocking effect
- Raw material costs reduction 5%-35%
What are the tips for using plastic color concentrates effectively?
- For blow molding and injection molding
The resins for extrusion and injection are often HDPE (high-density polyethylene) or PP (Polypropylene) due to their properties, which are suitable for these processes. In these industries, there are have a large requirement for coloring products such as bottles, cans, toys, and food containers,…
Firstly, Colored HDPE packaging generally has better stress-crack and chemical resistance, which is especially important for applications such as household cleaners and detergents that require more durability and longer shelf life. HDPE is also resistant to warpage, distortion and UV light.
Secondly, Polypropylene is also used in a variety of packaging applications because it is tough and heat resistant up to 180 F. One of the popular uses for PP is living hinges on bottles for ketchup, sour cream, and water.
Many PP living-hinge applications require nucleating agents such as silica, talc and organic salts to accelerate the crystallization rate to help reduce injection molding cycle times, thus lowering production costs. A reputable color pellet concentrate supplier will know the right choice of pigment and nucleating agents to capture production efficiencies without compromising living-hinge performance.
- For Extrusion molding
Every year there is an increase in the diversity and number of plastic products used in the building and construction industry. The broad range of plastic building products in this market includes cables, conduit, pipe, cladding, windows, doors, protective and decorative shutters, architectural roof tiles, decking, siding and flooring. Although these products perform well, adding color delivers the aesthetics desired by the brand or consumer, identifies them for specific usage (color-coding), and in many cases, defines the application. You may be familiar with the fact that plastic pipe and conduit are color-coded by their end-use application, such as:
▪ Blue = Potable Water
▪ White = Irrigation and Water
▪ Green = Sewer
▪ Purple (Lavender) = Reclaimed Water
▪ Gray = Electrical Conduit
▪ Orange = Telecommunication, conduit
▪ Yellow = Natural Gas (methane or propane) oil
▪ Red = Electric Power Lines, Lighting Cable
Once again, the biggest challenge related to coloring plastic building products is accurately matching the desired color in the specific product resin. Typical plastic resin types used in construction include PE, PP, TPO, PVC, PC, ASA, ABS, POM, nylon, acrylic, and a variety of thermoplastic composites.
It is critical to establish a partnership with your color and additives supplier early in the development process to achieve specific color and performance attributes. After determining the correct resin, your conversation may move to color selection. Typically, your supplier will have color sample chips or Pantone color charts to pinpoint the desired color for each plastic product or part.
- For blowing film, film extrusion
The requirements for the coloring-blowing film is not as special and strict as other applications due to its popular applications in our daily life with various products such as garbage bag, packaging film, plastic film, agricultural and construction film, diaphragm, garbage bag, and multi-layer bag.
The most important for this plastic colorant is the melt mass index which has to be much higher than the resin-based and filler masterbatch. Therefore, it will help plastic colorant disperse into the total material well. Finally, the finished products do not face undispersed problems and have the correct color as required.
What are the color masterbatch under US Masterbatch brand name?
Under Us Masterbatch brand name, we manufacture various types of plastic color concentrates, there are three main types of them:
– White Masterbatches: They contain high-quality outdoor and indoor Titanium dioxide (TiO2) grades which make the reflection of light possible.
– Black Masterbatches: Properties like high jetness, UV protective layer and also safe food contact are possible with the help of black masterbatches
– Colored Masterbatches: Yellow, Red, Blue, Green, Brown, Pink, Grey… has excellent light-fastness – heat resistance, along with high opacity, high tinting strength, economy, and good dispersibility. During production increases its light- and weather fastness to acceptable levels for many applications.
At Us Masterbatch, we always offer the suitable consultation for the desired color plastic product manufacturers want. Our Quality team guide and help them better understand their needs and decide on the exact color masterbatch customers want to order, and outline its color and functionality features. In the end, the ultimate goal is to help manufacturers create great cost-effective products that cater to their end-users’ best interests. Therefore, we are the best cooperator for color masterbatch, let’s contact us for better consultation.
