Sulzer Chemtech says its micro-cellular foam injection moulding technology is comparable with Mucell

Sulzer Chemtech says its micro-cellular foam injection moulding technology is comparable with Mucell

Swiss process engineering group Sulzer Chemtech has developed a micro-cellular foam injection moulding technology for plastics that it plans to market as a licence-free alternative to Trexel’s Mucell system. Preliminary evaluations of the Optifoam technology show it is comparable with Mucell, although further work remains to be done to establish this in all respects, according to Albrecht Gerland, development engineer at DuPont’s technical centre in Geneva. DuPont is Sulzer Chemtech’s development partner for engineering resin applications of the Optifoam process.

Speaking at PRW ’s High Precision Moulding conference in Telford, UK, yesterday, Gerland said the company has just installed an Optifoam development system at its Swiss labs and is now ready to take on evaluation trials for customers.

The hardware implementation of the Optifoam process is different from the Mucell system. Rather than introducing the super-critical nitrogen gas into the front section of the screw during plastification, Optifoam uses a modified nozzle tip incorporating sintered metallic liners and a static mixer element.

Gas is introduced to the polymer during injection through the sintered metallic liners, which are arranged to present a large surface area to the melt. The dissolved gas is then distributed through the bulk of the material within the static mixer.

By using a completely static technology, Optifoam is believed to be outside of the scope of Trexel’s main system patents. “We cannot, of course, be certain about this, but Sulzer is preparing a statement for their customers. It says it is very confident that this will not infringe any patents,” Gerland said.