ABS Plastic
Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) is an impact-resistant engineering thermoplastic. It is an amorphous polymer. It is made of three monomers: acrylonitrile, butadiene, and styrene. It is a preferred choice for structural applications due to its physical properties.
How is ABS made?
Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene is typically produced by emulsion polymerization or by polymerizing styrene and acrylonitrile in the presence of polybutadiene. This process produces long chains of polybutadiene that are interlaced with short chains of polystyrene-acrylonitrile copolymer to form strong bonds. ABS can also be produced by a patented process called continuous bulk polymerization.
ABS – What does it stand for?
ABS stands for “Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene”. It is an impact-resistant engineering thermoplastic and an amorphous polymer. ABS is made up of three monomers: acrylonitrile, butadiene, and styrene.
Acrylonitrile: This is a synthetic monomer that is made from propylene and ammonia. This ingredient helps improve the chemical resistance and thermal stability of ABS.
Butadiene: It is a byproduct of the production of ethylene in steam crackers. This ingredient gives ABS polymers toughness and impact strength.
Styrene: It is made by dehydrogenating ethylbenzene. It gives ABS plastics rigidity and processing properties.
Main Characteristics
Plastic ABS resin is the polymer with the largest output and the most extensive application. It organically integrates the various properties of PB, PAN, and PS, and has excellent mechanical properties of toughness, hardness, and rigidity. After actual use, it was found that ABS plastic pipes are not resistant to sulfuric acid corrosion and will shatter when exposed to sulfuric acid.
(1) Material properties
A. Good overall performance, high impact strength, chemical stability, and good electrical properties;
B. Good welding performance with 372 organic glass, made into two-color plastic parts, and can be chrome-plated and painted on the surface;
C. There are high impact resistance, high heat resistance, flame retardant, reinforced, transparent and other grades;
D. The fluidity is slightly worse than HIPS, better than PMMA, PC, etc., and has good flexibility;
E. Suitable for making general mechanical parts, wear-resistant parts, transmission parts and telecommunications parts.
(2) Molding performance
A. Amorphous materials have medium fluidity and high moisture absorption. They must be fully dried. Plastic parts that require glossy surfaces must be preheated and dried for a long time at 80-90°C for 3 hours;
B. High material temperature and high mold temperature are recommended, but excessively high material temperature will cause decomposition (decomposition temperature > 270°C). For plastic parts with higher precision, the mold temperature should be 50-60℃, and for high gloss and heat-resistant plastic parts, the mold temperature should be 60-80℃;
C. If water lines need to be solved, the fluidity of the material needs to be improved, and high material temperature, high mold temperature, or changing the water level should be adopted;
D. If heat-resistant or flame-retardant materials are formed, plastic decomposition products will remain on the mold surface after 3-7 days of production, causing the mold surface to be shiny. The mold needs to be cleaned in time, and the venting position needs to be increased on the mold surface;
E. The cooling speed is fast, and the mold casting system should be thick and short as the principle. It is advisable to set a cold material hole and the gate should be large, such as: direct gate, disc gate or fan gate, etc., but the internal stress should be prevented from increasing. If necessary, an adjustable gate can be used. The mold should be heated, and wear-resistant steel should be used;
F. Material temperature has a great influence on the quality of plastic parts. Too low material temperature will cause material shortage, dull surface, silver filament disorder, and too high material temperature will easily overflow, silver filament dark strips will appear, and plastic parts will change color and bubble;
G. Mold temperature has a great influence on the quality of plastic parts. When the mold temperature is low, the shrinkage rate, elongation, and impact strength are large, and the bending, compression, and tensile strengths are low. When the mold temperature exceeds 120℃, the plastic parts cool slowly, are easy to deform and stick to the mold, demolding is difficult, and the molding cycle is long;
H. The molding shrinkage rate is small, and melt cracking is easy to occur, resulting in stress concentration. Therefore, the molding conditions should be strictly controlled during molding, and the plastic parts should be annealed after molding;
I. The melting temperature is high, the viscosity is high, and it is not sensitive to shearing. For plastic parts larger than 200 grams, a screw injection machine should be used, the nozzle should be heated, and an open-type extension nozzle should be used, and the injection speed should be medium to high.
(3) Bonding issues
A. G-977: Single-component soft elastic shockproof adhesive that cures at room temperature, resistant to high and low temperatures, with different viscosity bonding speeds that cure in seconds to hours;
B. KD-833: Instant adhesive that can quickly bond PC plastics in seconds or tens of seconds, but the adhesive layer is hard and brittle and cannot withstand immersion in hot water above 60 degrees;
C. QN-505, two-component adhesive, with a soft adhesive layer, suitable for large-area bonding or lamination of PC plastics. But the high temperature resistance is poor;
D. QN-906: Two-component adhesive, resistant to high temperatures;
E. G-988: Single-component room temperature vulcanized adhesive, after curing, it is an elastomer with excellent waterproof and shockproof adhesive, resistant to high and low temperatures, with a thickness of 1-2mm, it takes about 10 minutes for initial curing, 5-6 hours for basic curing, and has a certain strength. It takes at least 24 hours to fully cure. Single component, no mixing required, just apply after extrusion and let stand, no need to heat.
Main Uses
The largest application areas of ABS resin are automobiles, electronic appliances and building materials. The use in the automotive field includes many parts such as car dashboards, body panels, interior trim panels, steering wheels, sound insulation panels, door locks, bumpers, ventilation pipes, etc. In the electrical field, it is widely used in refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, air conditioners, computers, copiers and other electronic appliances.
Engineering plastics
PC/ABS recycled materials are an important engineering plastic alloy, which is widely used in automobiles, electronics, office and communication equipment and other fields. Nowadays, in order to meet the special requirements of fire safety in application fields (especially electronic and electrical products), the flame retardant technology of PC/ABS alloy has become a hot topic of research. However, with the advancement of science and technology, the requirements for environmental friendliness of materials are getting higher and higher, and the harm caused by traditional halogen flame retardants is becoming increasingly obvious.
3D printing field
ABS plastic is one of the main materials for 3D printing. The reason why it can become a consumable material for 3D printing is determined by its characteristics. ABS plastic has the characteristics of heat resistance, impact resistance, low temperature resistance, chemical resistance, excellent electrical properties, and stable product size. ABS plastic is the most stable material in 3D printing materials.
Automobile industry
Many parts in the automobile industry are made of ABS or ABS alloys. For example, Santana sedans in Shanghai use 11kg of ABS per car, ranking third among the plastics used in automobiles. In other vehicles, the use of ABS is also quite amazing. In 2000, the amount of ABS used in automobiles in my country reached 35,000 tons. The main parts of cars use ABS, such as the dashboard, which uses PC/ABS as the skeleton, and the surface is covered with a film made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC)/ABS/BOVC resin. In addition, a large number of car interior decoration parts use ABS, such as the glove box and the glove box assembly are made of heat-resistant ABS, the upper and lower door sill trims, and the water tank mask are made of ABS. In addition, many parts use ABS as raw materials.
Office machines
Because ABS has high gloss and easy formability, office equipment machines need to have beautiful appearance and good feel, such as telephone shells, memory shells, and computers, fax machines, and copiers. A large number of parts made of ABS are used.
Household appliances
Because ABS has high gloss and easy formability, it has a wider market in home appliances and small appliances. For example, home fax machines, stereos, and VCDs also use ABS as raw materials. Vacuum cleaners also use a lot of ABS parts, and kitchen utensils also use a lot of ABS parts.
Environmentally friendly treatment methods for recycling ABS waste
A. Classified collection: First, ABS waste needs to be collected and classified to separate it from other types of plastic waste. This helps to improve recycling efficiency and reduce energy consumption and pollutant emissions during the treatment process.
B. Physical recycling: Physical recycling is one of the main methods for ABS waste treatment. Through crushing, screening, washing and other steps, the discarded ABS plastic is processed into recycled particles for the production of new plastic products. This method is simple and easy to operate with low cost, but the performance of the recycled ABS plastic may be reduced.
C. Chemical recycling: Chemical recycling is a more advanced method for ABS waste treatment. Discarded ABS plastics are decomposed into monomers or small molecular compounds by chemical means, and then synthesized into new plastic raw materials through polymerization reactions. This method can retain the performance of ABS plastics to a greater extent, but the cost is high and the technical difficulty is also greater.
D. Energy recovery: For ABS waste that cannot be recycled, energy recovery can be carried out by incineration and other methods. The heat energy generated during the incineration process can be used for power generation or heating to realize the resource utilization of waste. However, it should be noted that harmful gases and smoke may be produced during the incineration process, so professional purification equipment is required.
Plastic crusher, as an efficient and environmentally friendly mechanical equipment, is gradually becoming a key link in the waste plastic recycling industry chain. It can quickly crush various waste plastic products into small particles, laying the foundation for subsequent recycling and truly achieving the environmental goal of turning waste plastics into recycled raw materials.
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