For additives maker L. Brüggemann GmbH & Co. KG, the proposition was simple and the solution complex.
Customers were coming to the Heilbronn, Germany-based company looking for a new product to allow for higher-temperature applications for nylons in automotive applications.
There already were patent-protected products on the market from the big players, said Peter Beck, senior technical marketing manager for polymer additives at Brüggemann.
But Brüggemann doesn't play in that space, instead offering its products to smaller, independent compounders who might not do enough business to interest the large players in the additives industry, he said.
But while Brüggemann's niche might be smaller, that does not mean there isn't a need for new technologies.
"For us, it's very important. Our focus is always stabilizers, especially polyamides," Beck said. "We are always in the field of high heat."
Brüggemann wants to be in the forefront of customers' minds when they want heat stabilization. "That's what we do," he said, calling that work a core competency.
"It's clear that it's a typical behavior of Brüggemann. We get questions from the market requirements and we try to get a solution," Beck said.
So after about a year and a half of work, Brüggemann is out with its new Bruggolen TP-H1805, which allows use of nylon 6 for long-term use at temperatures up to 200° C and up to 230° C for nylon 6/6, Beck said during an interview on the K 2019 show floor Oct. 20.
Previous similar additives would begin to lose effectiveness in temperatures over 170° C or 180° C, he explained.
But with the added protection, compounders using Brüggemann's additives can provide resin that can withstand higher continual engine running temperatures.
With other solutions on the market, Brüggemann had to attack the issue from a different approach. "We looked at the patents and then we had to find a way to create a stabilizer but not interfere with those patents," Beck explained. "That was challenging."
The company wouldn't go into specifics about the chemistry in TP-H1805 for proprietary reasons, but Beck said the response to the new product has been strong at K 2019.
TP-H1805 is just one of a series of new products being launched by Brüggemann at K 2019.
The company also introduced Phenolic Plus Bruggolen TP-H1803, a heat stabilizer that "fills the price and performance gap between phenolic-based and copper-based stabilizer blends."
Bruggolen TP-H1607 is described by the company as "a new high-performance and cost-effective copper iodide-based stabilizer."
On the recycling side, Bruggolen M1251 "compensates, through linear chain lengthening, any decline in molecular weight during previous processing."
And Bruggolen TP-M1417 "shortens excessively long molecular chains of high-viscosity [nylon] scrap," the company said.
Bruggolen TP-P1810 was introduced at K 2019 as a flow enhancer for semiaromatic nylons.
