Rico
Mix of Materials
There is rising industry demand for a combination of thermoplastic and silicone. Self-adhesive liquid silicone grades from WACKER SILICONES allow optimum bonding in hard/soft composites.
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Silicones are tested for the most varied processing methods
The Austrian company Rico, located in Thalheim, is an elastomer-tooling specialist – with a particular focus on silicone.
Using two-component technology, it also manufactures products that are combinations of silicone and thermoplastic.
The two components present quite different requirements. One has to cool quickly, while the other must beheated rapidly.
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WACKER has already tested a great number of formulations of thermoplastics and ELASTOSIL® silicones
Challenges of Two-Component Technology
The specialists at Rico use WACKER’s ELASTOSIL® LR 3070 as the soft component. Thermal separation – i.e. preventing heat flowing into or out of the wrong portion of the mold – is a major challenge in two-component silicone technology.
The basic problem is that it is necessary to raise the temperature to cure the silicone, but the thermoplastic part must not remelt. Rico has built up a huge amount of expertise relating to hard/soft composites over recent years.
WACKER SILICONES, as a raw-materials manufacturer, benefits from the detailed feedback – for example about how materials behave and adhere to one another, and any practical restrictions.
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A Rico employee performs the sample taking
Fully Automatic Injection Molding Using Silicone
Thermoplastics and silicone can be bonded together by mechanical keying. Alternatively, a chemical bond may be produced by means of primers or by treating the thermoplastic component with plasma etc.
But the ideal approach is certainly a fully automatic chemical bond made with self-adhesive silicones.
The advantage is that uniform adhesion quality without the expensive and time-consuming preparation, post-treatment or microgrooves of mechanical keying. The ELASTOSIL® LR 307x series is the ideal material for fully automatic injection molding.
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A CAD graphic of Rico's highly complex mold
Self-Adhesive Silicones for Automotive Industry
WACKER is the only manufacturer to offer a complete portfolio of self-adhesive liquid silicone grades – its ELASTOSIL® line, which ranges from standard products to swell-resistant and oil-exuding varieties.
There is even a grade that bonds by self-adhesion to polycarbonate (PC). The automotive, mechanical engineering and tool-making sectors, in particular, benefit from our self-adhesive ELASTOSIL® grades.