In 1958, Goodrich Chemical Company in the United States first registered the TPU product brand Estane. Over the past 40 years, more than 20 product brands have emerged worldwide, each with several series of products. At present, the main global manufacturers of TPU raw materials include BASF, Covestro, Lubrizol, Huntsman, Macintosh, Gaoding, and so on.
As a high-performance elastomer, TPU has a wide range of downstream product directions and is widely used in daily necessities, sports goods, toys, decorative materials, and other fields. Below are a few examples.
① Shoe materials
TPU is mainly used for shoe materials due to its excellent elasticity and wear resistance. Footwear products containing TPU are much more comfortable to wear than ordinary footwear products, so they are more widely used in high-end footwear products, especially some sports shoes and casual shoes.
② Hoses
Due to its softness, good tensile strength, impact strength, and resistance to high and low temperatures, TPU hoses are widely used in China as gas and oil hoses for mechanical equipment such as airplanes, tanks, cars, motorcycles, and machine tools.
③ Cable
TPU provides tear resistance, wear resistance, and bending characteristics, with high and low temperature resistance being the key to cable performance. So in the Chinese market, advanced cables such as control cables and power cables use TPU to protect the coating materials of complex designed cables, and their applications are becoming increasingly widespread.
④ Medical devices
TPU is a safe, stable, and high-quality PVC substitute material that does not contain harmful chemicals such as phthalates, which can migrate to the blood or other liquids inside medical catheters or bags and cause side effects. It is also a specially developed extrusion grade and injection grade TPU that can be easily used with minor adjustments to existing PVC equipment.
⑤ Vehicles and other means of transportation
By extruding and coating both sides of nylon fabric with polyurethane thermoplastic elastomer, inflatable combat attack rafts and reconnaissance rafts carrying 3-15 people can be made, and their performance is far superior to that of vulcanized rubber inflatable rafts; Polyurethane thermoplastic elastomers reinforced with fiberglass can be used to make body components such as molded parts on both sides of the car itself, door skins, bumpers, anti friction strips, and grilles.
Post time: Jan-22-2024