Plastics

PETER GREVEN – Your partner for plastic additives

The plastics industry offers various usage possibilities for our products and is therefore one of our most important branches.

Metallic soaps are among the most suitable stabilizers and are characterised by their excellent stabilizing and lubricating properties. Additionally, metallic soaps are also used as acid scavengers and mould separating agents.

Ester lubricants are, as well as metallic soaps, indispensable additives for the plastics industry. Their impact and characteristics are based on the extent of the functional groups and non-polar parts as well as their ratio.

Additionally, oleochemical additives improve the flowability and processability of components and plastic mixtures.

Our most important brands for plastics industry

LIGASTAR^®, LIGASTAB^® and LIGALUB^®

Application areas

PVC

PVC (Polyvinylchloride) is one of the most popular plastics even though it is comparatively hard to process. Therefore, different types of additives are mandatory during PVC processing – especially stabilizers, preblends and lubricants.

Metallic soaps are particularly suitable as PVC stabilizers while offering good lubrication properties at the same time. Our broad product portfolio, mainly consisting of calcium and zinc stearates, covers a wide range of possible applications. In addition to our metallic soaps portfolio we offer metallic soaps preblends which can be customised to the respective requirements.

Esters are often needed as additional lubricants, even though metallic soaps already offer a lubricating effect. With our comprehensive ester product range, we offer different solutions for internal and external lubrication.

Polyolefins

The polyolefins product category includes polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE). Together with PVC, they are among the best known and most commonly used plastics while they are much easier to process than PVC.

Metallic soaps are important additives for polyolefins. Calcium and zinc stearate are the mainly used products. They primarily serve as acid scavengers and avoid that acids generated during the manufacturing process cause corrosion of the processing tools. Similar to their use in PVC they offer an additional lubricating effect. With our product portfolio we are able to meet application specific requirements like for example excellent filter test results.

Esters are not necessarily required as lubricants in this application but they can be used in polyolefins to provide additional advantages.

SMC / BMC

SMC (sheet moulding compound) and BMC (bulk moulding compound) are fibre-reinforced plastics. Due to the reinforcing component, their resilience is much higher than the one of PVC or polyolefins.

Metallic soaps are needed as mould separating agent during the processing of SMC / BMC. They enable an easy separation of plastic mass and mould without negatively impacting the surface quality. Calcium and zinc stearates are the mainly used metallic soaps while zinc stearate might sometimes be preferred due to its lower melting point.

Engineering Plastics

In general, engineering plastics differ from standard plastics in terms of mechanical or thermal characteristics or their chemical stability. The engineering plastics range covers various plastic types.

Our metallic soaps and ester lubricants are also used during production of engineering plastics. It is dependent on the respective plastic type which products are needed.

Our product portfolio is used for the following plastics: