4 April 2007 – Aptiform, based in the UK in Chesterfield, announced on the opening day of the JEC composites fair in Paris that it has introduced a new capability of producing mouldings in self-reinforced PET.
The new products complement the existing self-reinforced PP mouldings that the company first started to produce with its foundation last year as a moulding business to commercialise self-reinforced plastics (SRPs) developed by Netcomposites with industrial companies and universities.
As with the PP-based products, the PET versions of these self-reinforcing plastics (SRPs) depend upon use of fibre reinforcement in the same polymer as the base polymer, namely PET fibres in a PET base polymer in this case. Aptiform says that advantages of the new PET based products over conventional polyolefin-based SRPs include easier painting and bonding.
Commercial manager Greg Smith told PRW.com that Aptiform is not yet able to reveal the producer of the PET fibre reinforced PET polymer: the company sources its PP-based materials however from suppliers such as Lankhorst Pure, Curv (Propex) and Milliken.
