HAIFA, ISRAEL — Carmel Olefins Ltd. of Haifa has started manufacturing CarmelStat, a new polypropylene compound for use in electronics packaging, and will show it Sept. 15-18 at Plasto-Ispack '97 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Gershon Lidor, vice president, research and development, said CarmelStat costs three to four times what standard carbon-black mixtures cost, but is cleaner and provides better control over static charge dissipation.
CarmelStat has consistent and controllable surface resistivity with about 0.7-1.4 percent carbon black. Grades with low leaching levels are suitable in clean rooms.
``Many people are saying normal material with 15-20 percent [carbon black] is too conductive,'' he said.
The lower carbon-black content also keeps machines cleaner, and changing from black to white takes less than 90 minutes, with no scrap, Lidor said.
CarmelStat, invented at the Israel Institute of Technology, has a patent pending.
Carmel Olefins had sales of about $250 million last year and employs 600. The firm's customers include Bosch-Siemens Hausgerate GmbH in Munich, Germany, and Menasha Corp.'s Orbis unit in Oconomowoc, Wis.
