Consumer Electronics
Consumer Electronics Housings made of bioplastic Biograde is predominantly composed of natural resource materials and does not contain starch or starch derivatives. It is injection mouldable on conventional injection moulding equipment and can even be used with multi-cavity moulds. The material has excellent heat resistance, withstanding temperatures of up to 115 °C, and material properties that are comparable to polystyrene: rigid and transparent, depending on grade. In addition to a wide range of standard plastic housings and tuning knobs for electronic devices, OKW Gehäusesysteme from Buchen, Germany, also manufactures products that are made from specialized materials. Depending on the specific requirements of the application and its intended use, these include housings that are produced from biobased plastics. For customers seeking to help protect the environment, OKW now uses a special bioplastic suitable for long-term use. Electronic housings made from BIOGRADE ® , a cellulosebased material produced by FKuR (Willich, Germany) on the basis of renewable raw materials, offer a number of technological and ecological advantages. The housing (cf. photo), produced in off-white (RAL 9002) and complying with the UL 94 HB fire safety standard, has similar properties to high-quality plastic, a high quality of use and a very good surface finish. Housings from the Soft-Case product group have been part of OKW’s standard product range since October 2011, and are also available in larger quantities from stock. The products manufactured by OKW from special materials can also be further modified using various processing and finishing techniques such as mechanical processing, printing or EMC coating. Application examples include Bio-housings for diagnostics, therapy, measuring and control engineering, peripheral and interface equipment, household and many more. The products meet the demands and requirements that society makes on developers and manufacturers. MT www.okw.com BIO MEETS PLASTICS. The specialists in plastic recycling systems. An outstanding technology for recycling both bioplastics and conventional polymers CHOOSE THE NUMBER ONE. 24 bioplastics MAGAZINE [06/15] Vol. 10
Consumer Electronics Biobased plastic smartphone screen Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan) and Sharp Corporation (Osaka, Japan) cooperate in applying Mitsubishi’s biobased engineering plastic DURABIO for the front panel of Sharp’s new smartphone, the AQUOS CRYSTAL 2. Even if bioplastics MAGAZINE repeatedly reported about this 2015 Bioplastics Award winning application (see p. 10), we’d like to cover it again and give some more technical details about Durabio. Most front panels of smartphones are made of glass. In contrast to easily breakable glass, transparent polycarbonate or PMMA were considered for this application. However conventional Polycarbonate is crack-resistant but not scratch resistant, whereas PMMA is scratch resistant but not crack-resistant. MCC-developed Durabio is a bio-based engineering plastic made from plant-derived isosorbide which is both scratch resistant and crack-resistant and it has no yellowing (aging) effect, like comparable conventional plastics. MT www.m-kagaku.co.jp Plant-derived Glucose Sorbitol O Isosorbide OH X HO OH DURABIO TM O Co-monomers oxygen-containing Alicyclic O Polycarbonate OC X O Co-polymers O O n O m Low Birefringence Excellent Transparency Superior UV Resistance PMMA Oil Phenol / Acetone CH 3 CH 3 CH 3 CH 3 OH Bio!car 24 th Sept 2015 Bisphenol-A (BPA) BPA-PC Aromatic OC Om Polycarbonate Impact resistance Ductil Brittle DURABIO TM PC 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Haze by Tabor Abrasion (50 cycles) Surface Hardness (Tabor abrasion test) DURABIO shows excellent UV light resistance, that is non-yellowing, compared with PC. Flexibility 50 Stretch Orientation 40 High Impact Resistance (Multi-axial Impact) 30 DURABIO is a polycarbonate polymer. A main monomer is Isosorbite made from plant derived glucose 20 Good DURABIO TM PC/PMMA alloy PC High Surface Hardness PC Surface Hardness Heat Resistance 10 DURABIO TM Bio-based Content Sustainability Flame Retardance PC 0 0 hr 100 hr Time Scale Machine: 6-kW Metaling Weather Meter M6T Irradiance: 1.5 kW/m 2 , Condition: 63 °C x 50 % RH Comparative general properties Yellowness Index after UV Light Irradiation bioplastics MAGAZINE [06/15] Vol. 10 25
