The use of colored plastics is becoming increasingly widespread and the number of applications is rising continuously. At K 2016, taking place in Düsseldorf from October 19 to 26, specialty chemicals company LANXESS will present its extensive line of Colortherm-brand inorganic color pigments for coloring plastics. “Our range includes both universal products and specialties for unique requirements. Each product has its own defining characteristics, such as thermal stability, tinting strength, lightfastness, weather stability and brilliance,” explains Stefano Bartolucci, head of the Global Color Specialties Competence Center in the LANXESS Inorganic Pigments (IPG) business unit.

The pigments used for coloring plastics must satisfy a number of exacting requirements. Given the short dwell times and low shear forces in customer processes, they must have good dispersibility, i.e. they must be easy to distribute so as to reach their final tinting strength quickly. They must display high thermal stability, no migration and sufficient levels of lightfastness and weather stability for the intended application.

LANXESS’s Colortherm iron and chromium oxide pigments meet these requirements in full. What’s more, they are easy to process and their special micronization allows for high throughput, because the very finely ground pigments can be dispersed quickly in a plastic.

Thanks to their high thermal stability, some pigment grades can be heated to temperatures exceeding 300 °C, and suffer no adverse effects when the polypropylene fibers colored with them are extruded. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also licensed the safe and eco-friendly Colortherm pigments as a raw material for coloring toys and food packaging.

Suitable for virtually all plastics applications

Colortherm pigments have diverse fields of application: they are found in packaging materials, pipes and connector elements, automotive cockpits and synthetic leather for vehicles, and in plastics for the electronics industry. They are also commonly used in Tartan tracks on athletic fields and in wood plastic composite (WPC) panels for outdoor applications.

An important application for Colortherm Yellow in conjunction with organic phthalocyanine pigments is the coloring of artificial turf and is becoming increasingly popular because of significantly lower maintenance costs compared with stadiums with grass fields. In the extreme climate regions of the world, such as in Scandinavia with its harsh weather conditions, field sports would be impossible without artificial turf.

Color pigments from Krefeld-Uerdingen have been making the world a more colorful place for 90 years

LANXESS is the world's largest manufacturer of iron oxides and a leading producer of inorganic pigments based on chromium oxides. Iron oxides from IPG have a track record going back for 90 years as colorants for building materials, paints and coatings, plastics and paper, and as specialty pigments for toners and other applications. They are marketed under the trade names Bayferrox, Bayoxide and Colortherm, and are among the world’s most lightfast and weather-stable pigments, together with the chromium oxide green also supplied by the company. “As our customers see it, our decades of experience in manufacturing quality products and in process development and optimization sets us apart from many of our competitors,” remarks Jörg Hellwig, head of IPG. At the Krefeld-Uerdingen site alone, LANXESS produces more than 280,000 metric tons of color pigments a year, while the global figure is at 375,000 metric tons – and growing.

Through the Color Specialties Competence Center (plastics and paper), IPG customers have access to a global team of experts. They offer custom solutions for individual inquiries from customers in the plastics industry and on-site technical support.

For detailed information on the company’s inorganic pigments, go to www.bayferrox.com.

The IPG business unit is part of LANXESS’s Performance Chemicals segment, which recorded sales of EUR 2.1 billion in fiscal 2015. IPG has sites in Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany; Porto Feliz, Brazil; Starpointe Burgettstown, United States; Branston, United Kingdom; Vilassar de Mar, Spain; Sydney, Australia; and Shanghai and Ningbo, China. IPG has a global workforce of approximately 1,600 employees, around 800 of whom work in Krefeld-Uerdingen.