The Chemours Company will be exhibiting its wide range of fluoroplastics for the wire and cable industry in hall 17, stand D66 at Wire 2016. Further additions to the ECCtreme ECA family, a class of melt-processable perfluoroplastics which combines the advantageous mechanical, electrical and chemical properties of PTFE with high thermal stability. For instance, at a thickness of 0.75 mm, the material has an RTI (Relative Thermal Index) listing of 300°C according to UL 746B. Thanks to its continuous service temperature of 300°C, ECCtreme ECA thus exceeds the previous upper limit of 260°C for conventional perfluoroplastic insulating materials.ECCtreme ECA grades can be processed on conventional extrusion equipment for high-temperature fluoroplastics using standard processing conditions. Downstream heat treatment (epitaxial co-crystallisation) improves the material's thermal resistance and offers beneficial mechanical properties, such as long-term tensile modulus and improved stress cracking resistance.
The material is suitable for wire and cable insulations, which are exposed to extreme service conditions such as very high temperatures, elevated pressures and corrosive surroundings. Typical fields of application are the oil and gas industry, aerospace, energy generation, semiconductor fabrication and the automotive industry. "This development is our response to industry's challenge to offer a high-temperature, melt-processable perfluoroplastic", explains Frenk Hulsebosch, Global Product Manager Melts Fluoroplastics at Chemours Fluoropolymer Solutions.
Further products presented on the stand will include Teflon fluoroplastic foam resins (FFR) produced using patented Airquick technology. Cables made with foamed fluoroplastic insulation have a lower signal return loss than conventional data cables, so enabling miniaturization and weight savings thanks to lower density and thinner insulation thicknesses. One current example is the new KL24 Star-Quad data cable developed for the aerospace industry by Draka Fileca, Sainte-Geneviève, France which won a DuPont Plunkett Award in 2013. At identical diameter, it is up to 25 per cent lighter than previously used quad cables and enables a reduction in aircraft fuel consumption, so reducing environmental impact.
