Green Solution for PE-Xb in Drinking Water and beyond [PEX]

Silon, one of the major producers of PEX compounds for pipe applications has worked in partnership with Dow Corning and the Polymer Institute of Brno (CZ) in developing a new silane-crosslinked-polyethylene compound (PE-Xb). The new product that has evolved from this co-operation shall offer the pipe extruders the opportunity to bring pipes with excellent organoleptic properties (e.g., Threshold Odour Number, Total Organic Content, and olfactometry profile) to the market and meet the most stringent European standards applicable to drinking water. In addition to improved organoleptics the new PE-Xb compounds is able to crosslink and attain the minimum of 65% gel content without requiring the use of any tin-catalyst masterbatch during the pipe extrusion processing step. These green and consumer friendly benefits are in perfect agreement with the more and more severe classifications applied to certain organotin species, which shall dramatically restrict their use in such consumer applications in a near future.