Taiwan to develop environmentally friendly plastic tape

Since the era of petrochemical industry, human beings have been developing various polymer materials in order to break away from the various limits of natural materials, so as to improve the standard of living of human clothing, food, housing, and transportation, and also to have a wide range of scientific and technological developments. Great contribution.

In the past 30 years, since the rise of the human introspection movement, we have begun to examine the damage caused by various technological developments to the human living environment, carried out various environmental protection campaigns and signed relevant international conventions. Various forms of waste have caused serious environmental, environmental and climate impacts throughout the Earth. Especially in the past ten years, facing the global warming room effect and the impact of toxic substances such as Dioxin on the global environment, everyone’s concept of natural ecological protection has gradually risen. The concept that the environment is the human’s international public property is also rising, and environmental issues are no longer limited. The problem of manufacturing has even become an important business issue for companies. "Recovering the life in harmony with the environment" and "pursuing the sustainable development of the industry" have become new ideas for the protection of the environment in countries around the world. Environmentally-conscious materials, environmentally-friendly materials, materials that can be balanced with environmental ecology, and other environmental materials have also been the direction of efforts of all developed countries in the world in the past decade. Among them, the EU is the most active. RoHS Directive Article 4 Precaution It is stipulated that electronic motor products in EU countries may not contain lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and brominated flame retardants such as PBB (polybrominated) from July 1, 2006. Biphenyls) or PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), WEEE (waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment). The Directive even proposed to ban the use of halogen-containing flame retardants since 2008. Italy completely banned PVC plastic bags after July 1989, and the German Greens demanded that 95% of PVC products be replaced with other materials.

PVC resin, known as Poly vinyl chloride, is cheap, has good processability, and has the advantages of weatherability, chemical resistance, non-flammability, etc. In addition, it uses various additives such as plasticizers and fillers. It is a versatile plastic that can produce a wide variety of finished products from hard to soft. “Soft PVC tape” (commonly known as SPVC or PVC tape) is the second largest item of Taiwanese tape products, because upstream petrochemical plants can provide inexpensive PVC resin, and midstream plastic factories can provide high quality PVC tape back film. Therefore, several major tape manufacturers in the island such as Siwei Industry, Asian Chemistry, and Earth Integration can produce PVC tapes with international competitiveness. In 2001, the island’s total production was nearly 244 million meters, and the total output value was about NT$3.5 billion. PVC electrical insulation tape accounts for 160 million meters, not only can meet most of the island's needs, but also can be exported to all parts of the world and occupy an important position in the international market.

Because PVC is considered by the international environmental protection organization as the plastic product with the most serious pollution, the importance of environmental protection is increasing in each country. Whether it will be subject to strict control or completely banned will attract much attention in the future. Trying to make products from other alternative substrates is an important key to the sustainability of the domestic tape industry. Adhesive tape refers to a product in which an adhesive is applied to a backing film substrate, and a sticking effect is caused by the flow of the adhesive and the adhered body. The adhesive tape has a wide variety of types, and is generally classified into a solvent depending on the manner of adhesion. There are three kinds of activated, heat-activated and pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes. The pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes used in these three types of adhesive tapes are widely used as the most rapidly growing adhesive tape because of their ease of use. Electrical insulating tapes belong to this category.

Taiwan's ITRI's Environmental Safety Center has invested in the development of environmentally-friendly electrical insulation tape technology. For the application of environmentally friendly eco-materials as an alternative to PVC electrical insulation tapes, research has been conducted on carpet-based patent literature retrieval and with the industry Communication, and found that the technology and products in this part are still to be developed. At that time, they were also supported by Asian chemicals, earth synthesis, and far enterprise plastics. They joined the related industry cooperation plan for two consecutive years. At present, the research and development results have applied for patents, and the three companies have great confidence in the commercialization of products. During the research, we developed a polyolefin-based backing film with an environmentally-friendly tape to thoroughly study the flame-resistant plastic backing substrate, and at the same time, enhanced the surface treatment of the plastic backing film to increase its surface tension to more than 38 dyne/cm. The UL-510 is recognized as the global industry. Test standards for the evaluation of the properties of back-up membranes and tapes, including fracture strength, elongation at break, breakdown voltage, heat resistance, flame resistance, degree of deformation, cold resistance, and tear (ASTMd1004). As a result, the industry-based manufacturers are satisfied that the development of polyolefin-friendly materials combined with flame-retardant formulations can be passed through a flame-retardant test. The results are better than commercial PVC tapes. Whether or not flame-retardants are added depends on the requirements of the end user.

In addition to heat resistance, currently developed tape backing film can meet UL-510 standards, and even destroy voltage and deformation are better than traditional PVC tapes. It is suitable for low temperature or normal temperature environment, and adjusts resin molecular weight and crystallinity in the future. The modified tape backing film should be suitable for high temperature environments. A good combination of low cost and elasticity can be used to remove the YieldPoint, a PE resin that is inherently unsuitable for tape applications. In the stress-strain curves of various backing substrates, PE has a very distinct Yield Point. A lot of lack of sensation, when the stretch amount is only 10%, the tape does not feel elastic, and the PE tensile recovery ratio (deformation amount) reaches 30%, and the requirement that the electrical insulation tape is automatically tightened to prevent water vapor infiltration cannot be achieved. The modified Polyolefin substrate and 3M commercial tape of this study can achieve the effect of removing Yield Point and reducing the tensile recovery ratio.

As global green environmental protection issues are increasingly valued, a new generation of process and material technologies with the concept of green environmental protection and clean production is also continuously required. Therefore, the development of non-PVC electrical insulation tape or other products will be the industry will face new challenges in the coming years. At present, some manufacturers have commercialized this product. This mass production of clean production process products will open up a sustainable development for the traditional tape industry.