Today, advancements in custom polymers such as TPEs (thermoplastic elastomers) are improving products, making us safer, and protecting the future of our planet.
Our partner Star Thermoplastics is a leader in the field. As detailed in the February 2023 issue of Manufacturing in Focus, this small business is doing big things in TPE production.
- Improved quality and protection for everyday products
- Life-saving applications for people with diabetes
- Eco-friendly copolymers at the forefront of sustainable plastics
It’s all made possible (and profitable) with process oils that extend a wide variety of custom polymers, improving their performance and adhering to strict requirements for purity and safety.
Why Star Thermoplastics Is a Leader in Custom Polymers
Demands from Star Thermoplastics’ customers are many and can be quite challenging, whether those customers are various retailers, appliance makers, medical suppliers, automakers, etc.
Their ability to meet a wide variety of niche needs expanded dramatically during the pandemic. Demonstrating that necessity is the mother of invention, they became trailblazers in a time of widespread uncertainty.
“In the past six or seven years, we went full-force in terms of diversifying the market itself because, otherwise, we would not have survived the pandemic.” – Dr. Prakash Sanjeevaiah, Star Thermoplastics
Now, after making significant investments in their custom polymer production capabilities, it seems as though Star Thermoplastics can do just about anything. Here are just three examples.
1. Advanced Durability and Soft Touch
One of the company’s best-known product lines offers high-clarity and impressively durable TPEs for a variety of applications, such as “telephone covers” (cell phone cases), toys, and medical applications (more on that below).
However, using advanced TPE technology, the company is able to produce that same level of lifetime durability and quality for applications that require a “soft touch.” Shoe insoles, squishy toys, and automotive interior panels are just a few examples.
To accomplish results ranging from clear, flexible TPEs to “soft touch” applications, Star Thermoplastics uses highly pure, water-white, color-stable TPE process oils to extend these custom polymers.
2. Groundbreaking Medical TPEs
Beyond everyday products, Star Thermoplastics is also producing highly specialized custom polymers that are used in potentially life-changing applications for medical consumers.
The TPE maker worked with a world leader in wearable medical devices to help develop a groundbreaking self-monitoring device for people with diabetes that auto-injects medication.
To successfully administer the small doses of medication at set intervals, the device needed a puncture-resistant needle housing. Star Thermoplastics produced a custom TPE to the exact specifications.
Any TPE used in medical applications has to meet stringent requirements for safety. That’s why the company used only extremely pure, i.e. medical grade, extender oils that exceed multiple certification standards for safe human contact.
3. Sustainable Fire Retardant Elastomers
In service to the packing industry, Star Thermoplastics has also devoted R&D resources to developing custom polymers with improved fire retardant qualities that are also eco-friendly.
That’s a tall order. Some of the most effective flame retardants have been found to be quite toxic, as they’re associated with neurological damage. And the plastics that contain these chemicals are often non-biodegradable.
Over a period of just six months, the company was able to develop “green fire-retardant plastics that decompose into benign components like water.” And the marketplace has been receptive, as pallets made out of this material are starting to replace wooden ones.
“Thermoplastic elastomers have always been on the side of sustainability, even though it’s not being talked about. One of my objectives is to spread awareness about the inherent recyclability of these products.” – Dr. Prakash Sanjeevaiah
Sustainable plastics like these can only be extended with oils that are not only food-grade but highly biodegradable, such as high-purity, readily-biodegradable isoparaffins. Renkert Oil is proud to provide Star Thermoplastics with solutions like this.
Custom Polymers—with a Partner Like Renkert Oil—Can Change the World
Our partnership with Star Thermoplastics goes back several years.
In 2018, we co-published an article detailing our work in developing Renoil 1500-LV (high viscosity, low volatility). We engineered these very high-viscosity, color-stable process oils (now up to 2400 SUS @100° F) to put the very softest “soft touch” in automotive interior linings.
Our goals for this family of specialty oils are threefold:
- To ensure products like these from Star Thermoplastics, and from all our customers, will maintain these desired qualities for the life of the vehicle.
- In addition, these low-volatility oils also reduce automotive fogging, or the film that develops on the interior side of windows due to plasticizer or process oil mobility.
- Finally, these oils are extremely pure and do not pose the risk of releasing VOCs (volatile organic compounds) into the cabin due to oil mobility.
It’s been our pleasure to help Star Thermoplastics be a successful industry leader in the field of custom polymer manufacturing, and we look forward to doing the same for your company.
To learn more, request a consultation with a member of the Renkert Oil team today!