Chapter 10. Thermoplastic Elastomers
10.1. Background
Thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) have two big advantages over the conventional thermoset (vulcanized) elastomers. Those are ease and speed of processing. Other advantages of TPEs are recyclability of scrap, lower energy costs for processing, and the availability of standard, uniform grades (not generally available in thermosets).
TPEs are molded or extruded on standard plastics-processing equipment in considerably shorter cycle times than those required for compression or transfer molding of conventional rubbers. They are made by copolymerizing two or more monomers, using either block or graft polymerization techniques. One of the monomers provides the hard, or crystalline, polymer segment that ...
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