Benvic expertise creates PP breakthrough for profile extrusion.

Material synergies

Many interesting material synergies, for example, are now founded on the company’s bedrock PVC compound range – ProVinyl.

PVC is widely used today in the creation of various profile shapes and extrusions; from tubes and pipes to window profiles and various building applications. However, PVC can see its applications limited for at least the medium term: increasing regulation, customer perceptions and technical constraints could all shorten the horizon for the future.

And when it comes to polymer-based substitutes, the challenge is not easy: PVC compounds traditionally offer an excellent palette of choices for the product designer, providing some very good optimizations of cost, performance and versatility.

Any effective substitute for PVC would need to perform and compete at the same level. One potential material substitute is, of course, polypropylene based. However, and to date, PP has been mainly formulated for use solely in the injection molding process. Polypropylene’s commercial success had indeed gone ‘hand in glove’ with injection molding; requiring no special tooling (unlike PVC) and amenable to all manner of fillers and additives. 

But when PP is considered for extruding pipe and profiles - then its limitations are typically exposed.

Enter Benvic with its polypropylene-based DotCore range:

Benvic engineers, usually developing bespoke compounds, have now developed workable and extrudable solutions within the company’s DotCore PP range.

Based on major PP grades, Benvic’s new formulations has been adapted in order to provide a lowered Melt Flow Index (MFI) that is fit for purpose with extrusion.  An extensive variety of the usual PP grades have been made possible by Benvic for extrusion, including:

• Resin type: colopymer or homopolymer
• Fillers: Talc, calcium carbonate or glass fiber filled
• Different colors
• Flame retardancy, V0 or V2 with halogen free or halogenated

This breakthrough in supplying PP based extrusion grades now opens up a new world of choice for designers and specifiers.  Benvic’s DotCore PP extrusion grades can now be used to tackle major applications at scale, including tubing, cable trunking, furniture, tubing and interior profiles. Coextrusion with softer materials – such as Benvic’s TPE-based DotFlex range – is also possible.

In short, Benvic has now successfully adopted the same mind set for DotCore PP that helped the company launch and sustain over sixty years of PVC compound development.

In addition to all material and technical matters, Benvic is also able to provide a very high level of bespoke customer service on topics such as the level of compliance regarding performance and total cost of ownership.

Recyled option

In addition, Benvic has many recycling options in development – this being the next horizon for all the company’s products. As with all the company’s product lines, various DotCore extrusion grades will be shortly be introduced that contain recycled content. The options here will include both post-industrial and post-consumer PP recyclate, depending on the targeted performance and the likely environmental footprint.

Benvic’s ‘one stop shop’ provision of polymeric compounds is not just an empty claim: Benvic can now satisfy customers with choices in both PVC and PP materials for the extrusion process. Both of these primary materials benefit from the same level of Benvic design and support and advice regarding recycled content – making Benvic the designer choice when it comes to the next generation of plastic profiles in the new circular economy.

And with this PP extrusion breakthrough Benvic is once again ‘walking the talk’ of its new mission statement – Redesigning plastics. For Good.

All further details from Eric Grange, Benvic Marketing Manager.