Matrix Polymers is expanding its technical facility in Kolo by employing a Polish technical engineer and building a laboratory unit. The additional technical resource will strengthen the service Matrix provides to its clientele in Poland, Eastern and Central European countries.The laboratory will be equipped with a rotomoulding machine, falling dart impact tester and colour-matching facility. Over the past years, the use of colours in rotomoulding has become an important aspect because colours add value, differentiate products and therefore sell. However colours and colouring techniques can influence material performance. Dry-blending pigments with natural powder is still today an industry practice, although the material performance will be detrimentally affected. This practice is still today widely adopted because it is cheaper than colour compounding.
“We believe this is a false economy: life expectancy of any rotomoulded article can drastically be affected by how colours are added to the polymer matrix. For a long life-span, colour compounded materials are those to be choosen. For over a decade, at the Technical Centre in Matrix by testing many dry-blended colours we have gathered a huge amount of knowledge and experience which is now transferred to our laboratory in Poland. The topic is extremely complicated because not every single colour would have the same effect on material performance”, explained in Matrix Polymers.
