Color and Filler Masterbatches vs. Liquid Colorants - Chittor Polyfab

What are color and filler masterbatches?

Masterbatch is a solid, concentrated mixture made by distributing colors and addictive into a polymer under heat treatment and thorough mixing. The mixture is cool and cut into the correct shape and size. You can simply use them to color or impart a certain set of properties to plastic. Masterbatch helps the processor to color the raw polymer during the plastics manufacturing process, that too, in a very economical way. People use color masterbatch to color thermoplastics to get highly concentrated 1 ton of natural polymer.  
Another name for Filler Masterbatch is calcium carbonate filler, the most common plastic filler. One of the main components of film masterbatch is CaCo3, famous for its high-quality reserve. It would help in cost-cutting and improve product competitiveness. 

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What is a liquid colorant?

Liquid colorants are an alternative coloring method to solid mast batches for plastics. Research indicates that liquid colorant works more effectively for transparent or translucent plastic parts. Here, solid color is the most effective option for opaque plastic parts.  

• Liquid colorants for plastics can be dosed very accurately in small amounts, making it a viable choice in some transparent applications. 
• For small-volume applications (orders of 50kgs or less), liquid color can have a cost advantage because the batch is produced directly in the shipping container, so there is no compounding equipment to clean. 
• Liquid color blends into the polymer flow quickly, so if the plastic processing equipment is older with reduced mixing, liquid color may eliminate color streaks and swirls. 

Composition and Form of each liquid colorant

The composition and production process of the liquid colorant is as follows: – 

1. Take pigment or dyestuff quickly through the skin grinder until fineness is less than 50 microns, and obtain particulate starting material A. During the frosting process, the temperature must not exceed 50 degrees Celsius.
2. The particulate starting material A of frosted is joined in the dispersion agent and forms solid material B under the effect of the stirrer of 500 revs/min.
3. Take carrier and tension-active agents. Join them in the stirrer. Stir under the agitation condition of 500 revs/min and obtain thick liquid C.
4. Stir thick liquid C, add solid material B, and continue to stir. The agitation condition is revs/min to obtain flowable thick liquid D.
5. Take functional additives as required, and join in thick liquid D, stir. Obtain multi-functional liquid color concentrate through this process. 

The process of producing a color masterbatch depends on the specific applications and customer needs. The basic process of making the color masterbatch is as follows: – 
Identifying and weighing pigments and additives to know the total weight of the product you need to produce. 
Then, mix those pigments and additives into a career polymer under extreme heat using twins crew extruding.  
The last process is to let it cool and give it the shape of granules, powder, or any other shape or size. 
The production of filler masterbatch includes 4 steps: 
Step 1: The high-speed mixer mixes CaCO3, additives, and plastic resin.  
Step 2: The mixture above completely melts at high temperatures. 
Step 3: That mixture is then cooled and put into a screw extruder, pushed forward, and pressed into the mold.  
Step 4: Then, it cuts the output of the extruder into similar small pieces. They are filler masterbatch applied to plastic manufacture. 

Advantages of Color and Filler Masterbatches 

The advantages of color masterbatches are: – 

• The usage of the Color masterbatches is to add colors to the plastic. While combining different additives with various color masterbatches allows you to achieve the desired colors and effects to make the plastic products unique. 
• When compared to raw pigments, masterbatch allows for higher accuracy in controlling the opacity or transparency of final, colored products. 
• Predetermined ratios of additive ingredients are included in masterbatch, meaning there is a minimal chance of variance during manufacturing. 
• Masterbatching gives users better color consistency when working with large orders. 
• Melting processes improve with the masterbatch binding agents matching the used polymers. 
• Unlike masterbatch, pigments can become airborne during processing, which allows them to contaminate adjacent manufacturing lines. 
• Less complicated addition of additives via pellet-to-pellet mixing or extruder addition is made possible by masterbatches. The smallest dust quantities don’t necessitate a special dosing device. Additionally, it lowers the accuracy of addition needed to produce the final product with the same addition rate. 

Increased Process Stability and Product Consistency:

Through better dispersion, the use of an additive masterbatch also enhances product consistency and process stability. 
Handling hazardous materials more safely: Many additives are harmful or degrading in their natural state. Masterbatches contain the additive in a liquid or polymer resin. This encapsulation lessens or, in many cases, eliminates the danger of the additive. Additionally, it removes the numerous risks associated with handling powders. These features arrest the technical and personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements. 

Cleaner Production:

Masterbatch additives are cleaner and safer to handle. No powdered colorant or other additives can waft, spill, or statically adhere to surfaces. Here, what you get is a more hygienic production area with less cross-contamination and perhaps quicker changes between products.  

Extended Shelf-Life and Additive Stability:

During storage, the masterbatch can shield the additive from humidity, temperature, and UV exposure.  
Easier Antimicrobial Technology Incorporation: According to research, customers can easily incorporate antimicrobial technology while reaping masterbatch concentrates’ many advantages.  

The advantages of filler masterbatches are: – 

• Manufacturing lead time decreases due to the good thermal conductivity of CaCO3.  
• Input material expenses are reduced thanks to the reasonable price of CaCO3, which is significantly more economical than primary plastic.  
• Energy saving due to the decrease in manufacturing lead time.  
• Stability increases during the product-forming process.  
• Carbon footprints decrease thanks to the replacement of primary plastic with CaCO3. 
• A product’s physical properties, like flexibility, rigidity, etc., increase. 
• A product’s tear resistance increases regardless of its thickness.  
• The product’s printability increases. 
• Flexible applications: The suitable toughness and stable chemical properties allow filler masterbatch to be easily cut into small pieces or crushed into powder. You are free to mix it with other plastic resin. You get new products with more functionalities in return.  
• Forming enhancement: Filler masterbatch plays a vital role in adequate heat distribution in blow film or raffia, thus removing bubbles on plastic surface situations. 
• Product cost decrease: One of the main components of filler masterbatch is CaCO3, famous for its rich and high-quality reserves worldwide. It will reduce production costs, stabilize the amount of input materials, and significantly improve the product’s competitiveness.  
• Physical properties enhancement: Rigidity and plasticity increase, and shrinkage decreases. 

Difference between Color and Filler Masterbatches 

The main difference between color and filler masterbatch is their usage. People use the color masterbatch mainly for coloring the plastic and the filler masterbatch for filling. The primary use of the color masterbatch is to impart vibrant and consistent colors to plastic products. 
It contains a high concentration of color pigments dispersed in a carrier resin. Filler masterbatch is formulated with mineral-based fillers such as calcium carbonate, talc, or glass fibers. 
People use them to modify the density, stiffness, and thermal conductivity of plastic products. 

Why color and filler are better?

Color and filler are better mainly because of their cost-cutting benefits. Since the color and filler masterbatch-making process and everything else, such as materials, come for a very reasonable price, it makes a better product. The reduced cost here makes a big difference in the final product pricing.  

Environmental and Sustainability factors 

Sustainability is a very big factor in color and filler masterbatch. Using raw materials from environmentally friendly sources and keeping the production practices ecologically friendly is one of the biggest problems as it increases the production cost. You can recycle masterbatches. Many companies help their customers to reduce waste and recycle them. Using sustainable techniques and reducing carbon imprint can make the masterbatch have less of an impact on the surrounding ecosystem.  

Disadvantages of Liquid Colorants 

• Fly dust pollution: When pigments are transported, stored, weighed, or mixed, they may fly into the air and, cause pollution and adversely affect the working environment.  
• Cleaning the extruder’s hopper is difficult. Under the influence of a wetting agent, such as white oil, the toner used for coloring is attached to the inner wall of the barrel (or even on the screw). Cleaning the barrel becomes a challenge for the on-site operators when the material needs to be changed.  
• Spinning products and blown film are not useful. People do coloring with toner. Its dispersibility is better because the pigment powder is dispersed uniformly throughout the resin to be colored. 

Why choose us?

Whatever advantage you look for, the best color and filler Masterbatches are what we have in store for our customers. Our products are eco-friendly, and they serve best while protecting the results. We believe in delivering the best. The end results are always superior to the end users’ expectations. You need to try our product once to ensure we deliver the best. 

We have heard a lot about masterbatch products, but do we understand them correctly? Find out more through the article below!

General

Masterbatch (MB) is a solid or liquid additive for plastic used for coloring plastics (color masterbatch) or imparting other properties to plastics (additive masterbatch). So, Masterbatch is a concentrated mixture of pigments and/or additives encapsulated during a heat process into a carrier resin which is then cooled and cut into a granular shape. They allow the processor to colour raw polymer economically during the plastics manufacturing process.
The alternatives to using masterbatches are buying a fully compounded material (which may be more expensive and less open to e.g. color variability of the product), or compounding from raw materials on site (which is prone to issues with achieving full dispersion of the colorants and additives, and prone to preparing more material than what is used for the production run).

For more information, please visit desiccant masterbatch.

Components

In comparison with pure pigments, masterbatches require more storage space and their lead times are longer. Another disadvantage is additional exposure of heat (“heat history”) to both the carrier and the additive; this may be important e.g. for marginally thermally stable pigments.
As masterbatches are already premixed compositions, their use alleviates the issues with the additive or colorant clumping or insufficient dispersion. The concentration of the additive in the masterbatch is much higher than in the end-use polymer, but the additive is already properly dispersed in the host resin. In a way their use is similar to uses of ferroalloys for adding alloying elements to steels.

More

The use of masterbatches allows the factory to keep stock of fewer grades of the polymer, and to buy cheaper natural polymer in bulk. The carrier material of the masterbatch can be based on a wax (universal carrier) or on a specific polymer, identical or compatible with the natural polymer used (polymer-specific).

The usual ratio of masterbatch to the base resin is 1 to 5 percent. Several masterbatches (color and various additives) can use together. The carrier can also double as a plasticizer (common for liquid masterbatches) or a processing aid.
The machines are usually fed with premixed granules of the host polymer and the masterbatch. The final mixing then gets done in the screw and extrusion part of the machine. This is sometimes prone to adverse effects, e.g. separation of the masterbatch and the base material in the machine’s hopper.

How is masterbatch produced?

1. Weighing
2. Mixing
3. Twin-screw extruding
4. Cutting and cooling
5. Sieving
6. Bagging

The masterbatch can also add directly to the machine’s screw, as a free-flowing solid or in case of a liquid masterbatch by e.g. a peristaltic pump. Such use of liquid masterbatches allows highly accurate dosing and quick change of color between machine runs. Masterbatches can be used in most processes, except rotational molding and Plastisol and other liquid resin systems.

Advantages of using Masterbatch in plastic manufacturing

Masterbatch brings many advantages for the final plastic products:

PRODUCTIVITY

Masterbatch can increase volumetric output (as a result of thermal conductivity & volumetric expansion to temperature). In addition, it has the ability to downgauge due to higher film physical properties.

TOTAL COST SAVE

With the large percentage of CaCO3 powder in component, masterbatch helps manufacturers reduce material cost by using less energy to run the machine due to higher CaCO3 specific heat.

PHYSICAL PROPERTY

Masterbatch helps plastic improve a lot of physical property such as Higher toughness; Flexural stiffness; Adhesion; Printability

Applications of masterbatches

Additive masterbatches modify various properties of the base plastic:

ultraviolet light resistance ; flame retardant; anti-fouling; anti-static; lubrication; anti-slip; corrosion inhibitors for metals packaged in plastic; anti-microbial; anti-oxidants; extrusion aids; phosphorescence; anti-counterfeit; product security

Masterbatch in the following areas:

Blown film & lamination; PP raffia/Yarn; PP non-woven fabric; Blow molding; Injection molding; Thermoformed sheet; HDPE/PP pipe extrusion; Polyester and Nylon yarn

FILLPLAS Masterbatches has many types such as Filler masterbatch, White Masterbatch, Black Masterbatch, and other Color Masterbatch.