RTP Company: The Global Leader in Specialty Compounding

Frost & Sullivan
Technology Innovation of the Year Award

2005 Specialty Plastic Compounds Award Recipient

Frost & Sullivan's 2005 Technology Innovation of the Year Award in the field of Specialty Plastic Compounds goes to the RTP Company for its leadership in specialty plastic compounding. RTP Company manufactures specialty compounds from more than 60 engineering resins and can affect color, level of conductivity, high temperature performance, and wear resistance in engineered plastics. Each year the company develops thousands of custom reinforced thermoplastic formulations for the electronics, automotive, appliance, consumer, medical, and sports/leisure markets.

The RTP Company just recently established a new extrusion division. Current specialty plastic compounding technology thrusts include photoluminescent safety sheet, wet grip elastomers, and signal enhancing wireless electronic compounds. Depending on the precise application, a base resin or blend/alloy is selected that has most of the attributes required in the finished compound to which other materials are incorporated in order to achieve the end product fundamental requirements, be it improved wet grip performance, abrasion resistance, toughness, electrical conductivity, or tailored metal replacement thermoplastics to name just a few.

Thermoplastic elastomers are a growth technology area for RTP Company. The latest example is the company's RTP 6011 product line, a new range of functionalized TPEs based on unique RTP Company technology that is designed specifically for improved wet grip performance. These new TPEs are not slippery when wet. They provide excellent wet coefficient of friction (COF), 45% higher than SBC based TPEs and olefinic thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) of equivalent hardness (55, 65, and 75 Shore A). RTP 6011 products have a wet COF that is equal to or higher than dry COF, while most TPEs show a significant decrease in COF when they become wet. The material bonds well to polypropylene substrates and can be colored by either concentrate or precolor methods. Applications include handgrips and footpads for marine and personal watercraft, bath and household consumer items, kitchen utensils and grips for hand/power tools.

The RTP Company also produces a wide range of laser-markable compounds (LMC) that produce durable, abrasion-resistant marks for applications such as keyboard buttons, push buttons for automotive interiors, food packaging, medical products, and identification such as bar codes, logos, and lot numbers. These compounds can be developed from many resin systems and may be modified for flame retardance, color, wear resistance, conductivity, or structural properties. LMC's are designed to work with state-of-the-art laser technology to produce permanent imprints resistant to wear and abrasion. Since lasers avoid surface contact, parts with uneven finishes and shapes can be marked with a variety of important information. The most common laser is Nd:YAG (near infrared), which causes a thermochemical reaction such as color change, foaming, engraving or engraving with a color change. RTP Company can pre-evaluate a specialty compound for laser markability with their in-house Nd:YAG laser.

A new line of photoluminescent safety sheet contains glow-in-the-dark pigments that glow longer and stronger than previous pigments. Phosphorescent pigments absorb ultraviolet light and slowly emit this energy over time. The effect is best achieved with clear or translucent resin systems such as acrylics or polycarbonates and the compounds are most effectively recharged by direct exposure to ultraviolet rays. RTP Company's sheet extrusion process evenly distributes the pigment particles to create enhanced performance that lasts up to ten times existing industry standards, and exceeds common safety/egress standards. Emerging enduses are polycarbonate sheet with white backing, and flexible TPO sheet for use in egress tape, signage, sporting goods, safety equipment and electronic enclosures. A clear topcoat protects against abrasion and resists water, oil, acid, and bases. The sheet products are easily printed or laser marked to produce permanent character or symbol imprints. As the photoluminscent sheet products are not PVC there are no shrinkage, odor, or out gassing problems and plasticizers will not migrate to the surface to interfere with printing inks or adhesives.

RTP Company advances in high gravity compounds (HGC) technology allow thermoplastic materials to duplicate the weight of metal while providing important design and performance benefits. New grades of heavy weighted compounds (5-11 gm/cc) using a variety of resins (nylon, TPU, PP, PEEK) and additives can be formulated with notably lower viscosity. The resulting improved flow helps to fill thinner walls, allows more intricate designs, and improves the surface finish of molded parts. The lower viscosity can even improve thermal stability, most dramatic in the highest specific gravity materials. HGCs are ideal for weight manipulation applications such as sporting goods where density controlled compounds greatly improve the performance of racquets, clubs and other equipment; luxury items where heft connotes quality (perfume bottles and caps); pool/marine applications to counter buoyancy; and traditional metal products (faucet handles, ballistics).

Highly experienced in long fiber compounds (LFC), RTP Company has expanded its long fiber product line with Victrex PEEK (polyetheretherketone). These RTP 2200 Series PEEK LFCs have improved impact strength compared to conventional short fiber PEEK materials making them ideal for metal replacement applications. RTP Company Long Fiber PEEK 30% glass filled compounds have twice the impact strength of comparable short fiber PEEK compounds. LFCs are superior to short fiber products because the longer fibers mechanically interlock, reducing warpage/shrinkage and absorb higher stress levels. Compared with metal, the strength, stiffness and impact resistance make these non corrosive LFCs ideal for automotive, industrial, construction and other demanding applications.

RTP Company is a pioneer in formulating compounds for encapsulating embedded antennae for wireless devices and other sensitive microelectronic components. These thermoplastic electronic component encapsulation compounds (ec)² are superior to standard thermoset encapsulation grade materials. The (ec)² compounds improve dielectric properties and thermal conductivity. They also have a lower coefficient of thermal expansion and unlike thermosets, have no environmental disposal, health or safety concerns. The compounds are available in commercial colors and can be laser marked for long lasting identification.

For thin wall injection molding required in the production of medical, electronic, and biotech devices, RTP Company has developed high flow conductive polypropylene compounds. These easy-to-mold materials have typical melt flows of 20 gm/10 min, versus 1 to 3 gm/10 min with earlier conductive polypropylene compounds. Typical electrical properties for these tough, conductive, new high flow grades are a surface resistivity of 10⁴ ohm/sq and a volume resistivity of less than 25 ohm/cm. Applications include labware containers, pipette tips, medical delivery systems, EMI shielding housings, and products for handling explosives.

RTP Company's nanotube compounds provide uniform and precise surface resistivity of 10⁴ to 10⁹ ohm/sq, with little to no impact on the resin's key physical properties including ease of processing, shrink rate, impact strength, and surface finish. These innovative new compounds contain hollow carbon nanotubes that are thousands of times smaller in diameter than carbon fibers. These nanotubes have an extremely high aspect ratio (length: diameter), such that conductive properties can be achieved at very low loadings. The extremely small nanotube size combined with low loading levels provide a more uniform conductive surface that reduces the 'hot spots' compared with a carbon fiber filled compound and also permit thin wall molds to fill at lower temperatures. The nanotube compounds reduce cycle time and offer lower specific gravity than competitive conductive materials. Since there is low particulate generation, they are ideally suited for clean room applications. Other important uses are for fuel systems where static discharge protection is needed, and automotive body attachments like mirror housings and door handles where conductivity allows electrostatic painting without the need to use a conductive primer.

In all, The RTP Company's innovative specialty plastic compounds, currently numbering 3,000+ and backed by the industry's most exacting data sheets/product guides, application/problem solving profiles, product development/technical service, make it a leader in specialty compounding in the plastics industry and a most worthy recipient of Frost & Sullivan's 2005 Specialty Plastic Compounds Technology Innovation of the Year Award.

More...

• Frost & Sullivan interview with Mike Cathey, RTP Company's Manager—Business Development

Frost & Sullivan

Award Description

The Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation of the Year Award is bestowed upon a company that has carried out new research, which has resulted in an innovation that has or is expected to bring significant contributions to the industry in terms of adoption, change, and competitive posture. This Award recognizes the quality and depth of a company's research and development program as well as the vision and risk taking that enabled it to undertake such an endeavor.

Research Methodology

To choose the Award recipient, the Frost & Sullivan analyst team tracks innovation in key hi-tech markets. The selection process includes primary participant interviews and extensive primary and secondary research via the bottom-up approach. The analyst team shortlists candidates on the basis of a set of qualitative and quantitative measurements. The analyst also considers the pace of research and technology innovation and the significance or potential relevance of the innovation to the overall industry. The ultimate Award recipient is chosen after a thorough evaluation of this research.

Measurement Criteria

In addition of the methodology described above, there are specific criteria used to determine the final rankings. The recipient of this Award has excelled based on one or more of the following criteria:

• Significance of the innovation in the industry, and across industries (if applicable)
• Potential of the products of innovation to become industry standard(s)
• Competitive advantage of innovation versus other related ones
• Impact (or potential impact) of innovation on company or industry mindshare and/or company bottom line
• Breadth of intellectual property related to the innovation (patents, scientific publications, papers in peer reviewed journals, etc)