PT Online

Parkinson Technologies Inc., Woonsocket, R.I., teamed up with

Solvay Solexis, Inc., Thorofare, N.J., to produce what’s believed

to be the first biaxially oriented PVDF film. The film was produced

in Parkinson’s Marshall & Williams extrusion and orientation

lab facility in Woonsocket for a Solvay project whose

details are confidential.

    The project was a year in the making, and involved numerous

changes to both process settings and hardware to accommodate

the resin’s narrow processing window. “With PVDF, the range of

temperatures and stretch ratios was much narrower than typical

commodity resins, making it more difficult to identify the process

window and making the overall manufacturing process less

stable,” explains Ken Forziati, Parkinson’s business development

manager. “This was complicated by the 16-micron finished film

thickness. When process conditions fall outside the process window,

the material typically breaks in the MDO or splits in the

TDO, making nothing but a lot of very expensive scrap.” Forziati

added that processing PVDF also required corrosion-resistant

hardware for the extruder, melt pipes, die, etc.

    Biax PVDF film boasts unique properties, including abrasion

and corrosion resistance, that suit it to a wide variety of applications

in harsh environments, such as capacitors.

(401) 762-2100 • parkinsontechnologies.com