In today's world of plastic materials and products have been related to the application of all walks of life, all aspects, as well as every home, more and more business people involved in the production and marketing of plastic products in the past. Plastic products for the selection of the colorant of plastic industry has also become a concern for the issue. Xiao Bian today we look at the choice of plastic colorant must be noted that several elements!

Type of plastic colorant
Type of plastic colorant, its physical form is divided into four categories: Toner - powdered colorant; color paste - paste colorant; a liquid colorant; masterbatch - solid state colorant. Which is widely used as a solid powdered colorants and colorants. That toner in masterbatch.

Toner
Directly add the appropriate amount of powdered plastic additives particle coloring method using toner (pigment or dye), also known as dry coloring.

Toner advantage
Good dispersion, low cost, small-batch operation. Since it obviates the other colorants, such as processing of human and material resources consumed masterbatch, paste, and thus low cost, without limits on the amount of buyers and sellers. Masterbatch manufacturer can not do 1 ~ 2kg, but the quality of the toner can be specified as required, preparation is very convenient. Use dye coloring, compared with other colored granulated, resin processed less experience a degradation process helps to reduce the aging of plastic products and increase its service life.

Toner disadvantage
Pigment in the transport, storage, weighing, mixing process will be flying, pollution, seriously affecting the work environment. As environmental, business indicators ISO 9000 requirements, more and more dye coloring has been limited, but for special effects coloring, using direct toner mixed colored masterbatch coloring has some less than the effect.

For Column Description
Some poor heat resistance, fear shear pigment powder made of masterbatches, because it withstand high temperatures for a long time, and long sheared masterbatch processing equipment in time, the coloring effect will be significantly weakened, such as pearlescent pigments, phosphor, luminous powder. Toner is made with pearl masterbatch and then colored plastic, colored plastic than directly mixed with pearl powder, pearl effect to its reduced about 10%, and injection molding products are also prone to flow linear scar and seams. When we manufacture this type of masterbatch, are taking the appropriate measures to minimize the masterbatch in the process of heating temperature, duration and extent of the cut (no twin-screw granulator, while the single-screw granulator Wait).

Dry coloring make another user headaches extruder hopper is easy to clean. For colored toner in the role of white oil humectant, buildup on the inner wall of the barrel (and even on the screw). When you need refueling, cleaning the barrel became the site operator's problem, time consuming and expensive materials, duplication of efforts, the use of masterbatch coloring would not have this problem.
Further, the use of colored toner, since the required uniform distribution of the pigment in the colored powder in a resin, the dispersibility is good, the only conclusion for injection products, in particular thick-walled products, for blown film, spun products it is another matter. Since toner generally not been pretreated, when it is mixed with the resin after relying on the extruder feed port, a screw, to spout such a distance and in such a short time mixed plastics, to make pigment powder molecular pigment molecules are colored well join hands - fully integrated, is not totally guaranteed, there will be "cooked" phenomenon. But this "cooked" phenomenon in the thick product will be masked out, blown film, spinning products is obvious. Therefore, the latter method is still colored masterbatch based.
In addition, the toner due to different manufacturers of production date, batch number, and the same brand of toner there are a certain color, even if you insist on using the same formula, but in the process is very difficult to batch to batch injection product color consistency, while the masterbatch in the production process by way of sampling, testing, adjustment to compensate for each batch of toner color, contrast, color masterbatch repeatability was superior toner.
Because toner for coloring plastics have various limitations, is challenged by other colorants, but due to the relatively low cost of production, fixed color, color is not a limitation of quantity, for SMEs in developing countries, the private sector who, in order to participate in the fierce market competition, there is a certain use of the toner economy, especially some single color samples, large output, less demanding coloring products, such as windows and doors PVC, EVA soles, or favor it therefore can not be completely out of the toner colorant stage.

Features colored masterbatch
In order to overcome the drawbacks dye coloring, improve the quality of plastic products, with the continuous development of the plastics industry, innovative types of plastic resins, additives species, plastics processing equipment and technology, a breakthrough, another way of coloring plastics - - colored masterbatch has been widely adopted, colored masterbatch technology is applied in practice and continue to improve.

What masterbatch
I.e. using some appropriate equipment and technology, under the effect of the additives, a pigment (or dye) into the carrier by heating, plasticizing, mixing, shearing, and finally to the pigment powder carrier resin molecule molecule is sufficiently combined, then made of the resin particles of similar size particles. We call this a high concentration of colorants called masterbatch, its role and "saccharin" similar use, simply add the resin to be colored in a smaller proportion (1% to 4%), you can achieve coloring purpose resins.

Compared with the toner coloring masterbatch coloring has the following significant advantages
 
(1) improved due to toner dust caused by environmental pollution, easy to change color during use, you do not need special extruder hopper cleaning more conveniently.

(2) targeted, color correct. Since masterbatch manufacturing facility in the manufacturing process is suitable for the performance of the resin, a reasonable choice of pigment (dye), additives, processing equipment, processing technology, the production process of different batches of color toner may bring timely correction, fill color, and then tested at the factory, so you can ensure the same grade masterbatch, before and after the two groups of color remain relatively stable.

(3) Compared with the bulk resin dry granulation and then stained to make plastic parts, plastic products can reduce the use of masterbatch resin by the second post-processing performance caused by aging, will help improve the service life of plastic products.

Biggest advantage of using masterbatch is: in the process, the pigment in the aid action, after full mixing masterbatch carrier resin and fully integrated. In use, a certain percentage to be processed into a resin, masterbatch quickly into the role, and the resin recognize "relatives." Affinity - compatibility was superior to dye coloring, therefore, for the production of films and spinning products manufacturers, to appreciate better.

to sum up
Masterbatch coloring has its limitations due to add less, plastics processing time is short, the extruder screw length limit by, masterbatch dispersion often inferior to the toner. More than once the manufacturing process, the dyeing costs are certainly higher than the dye coloring. When masterbatch carrier and demand colored resin properties are different, the plastic surface often occur undispersed points, spots, pattern. Therefore, the use of masterbatch for its compatibility and dispersion is limited.