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New Plastic Resins Great for Scratch Resistant for Electronics Applications

New Plastic Resins Great for Scratch Resistant for Electronics Applications

Industrial and consumer keypads, housings, other structural and cosmetic parts for mobile phones, computers, and digital cameras are subjected abrasive wear. To combat excessive wear, engineers and designers have used polycarbonate (PC) for this application components, and it is also necessary to hard-coat the resin to prevent abrasion and maintain a good surface appearance. Any secondary process, such as hard coating always means extra cost, additional processing time, and lead time.

As an alternative, GE Plastics has developed a new family of Lexan* PC resins featuring excellent scratch resistance. This new family of resins provides improved surface hardness without the requirement for hard coating. These materials are great alternatives for transparent applications such as soft keys, infrared lenses, bezels, and screens.

Independent laboratory tests have been conducted using the pencil hardness (1 kgf) standard, the Lexan* PC resin based materials achieved an H rating compared to a much lower 2B rating for ordinary PC - equivalent to up to five times the hardness of the standard material. The GE resins even surpassed painted acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), PC/ABS, and other painted resins, which only achieved a mid-range F rating. Further, if the Lexan DMX resin grades are hard-coated with silicone or acrylic, their pencil hardness increases to 3H.

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10/16/2006, 08:39:56
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