Elkem shows off LSR Select to industry

Chris Sweeney From left: Chris York, North American president for Elkem Silicones; Todd Lawrence, scientist/technical service representative; Julie Harber, business development manager for REI and LSR Select; and Mehdi Abbadi, global business unit director for eXtensio Elastomers, at Elkem’s demonstration booth for LSR Select.

Anaheim, Calif. — Elkem Silicones USA Corp. has been working on its new process for liquid silicone rubber for a few years, and now it’s ready to show the industry.

The company officially launched LSR Select, a process focused on producing LSRs more efficiently by being able to manage cure speed. It also allows molders more options as Elkem’s new process can blend durometers to an exact number. For instance, instead of scaling up by 10, the firm can precisely mix materials to create an exact Shore-A hardness.

Elkem demonstrated the process at the recent Medical Design & Manufacturing West show in Anaheim.

“This is really game-changing for the marketplace because there’s a lot of two-component material that people would like to have overmolded to liquid silicone rubber,” said Chris York, North American president for Elkem Silicones. “It’s been impossible to do that in the past because the temperature would degrade the plastic. There are a lot of unique things material science people in the industry can start to think about doing to enhance the performance value of their parts with liquid silicone rubber.”

Getting ratios to be exactly perfect to have full utilization of the silicone product is an ongoing issue with many molders, York said. A traditional LSR process takes two components and flows them through a pump into a static mixer.

Read the full story at LSR world.

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