On the one hand, metals such as lead are more or less banned by regulations and environmental trends and, on the other hand they are difficult and expensive to process. Consequently, a market is developing for heavy polymers with densities in the same order, easier to process, environment-friendly and economically competitive after processing and finishing.
There also some markets for intermediate density polymers that can evolve between less than 2 up to 11.
Metal filled thermoplastics are well placed to meet these requirements with:
* The possibility to obtain densities of 11 with non-toxic metal addition
* Design freedom
* Acceptable processing
* Fair final performances
* Interesting final costs.
High densities can be also unintentional, resulting from the use of metals or other heavy additives to obtain specific properties such as electrical or thermal conductivity, magnetic behaviour etc.
A broad market, estimated at more than $5 million per year for USA, is developing thanks to a great diversity of:
* Polymers:
o Commodity such as polypropylene and ABS…