Solef® and Hylar® PVDF are semi-crystalline fluoropolymers widely known for their excellent performance in a very broad range of applications.
Solvay Solexis' PVDF product family offers a wide choice of grades, ranging from highly crystalline PVDF homopolymers to extremely flexible VDF-HFP and VDF-CTFE copolymers.
Hylar® is an ASTM D-3222 Type I resin while Solef® is an ASTM D-3222 Type II resin.
Markets and Applications
Piping systems: Solef® and Hylar® are widely used in piping systems for ultrapure water, hot, concentrated acids; pharmaceutical grade chemicals; chrome plating chemicals and more. They are also materials of choice for the construction of flexible risers for off-shore oil & gas extraction as well as for off- and on-shore distribution.
Pumps, vessels, etc.: Solef® and Hylar® are found also in other fluid handling components such as pumps, vessels, meters, valves, tubing, quick disconnect couplings, sinks, filter housings, and flow meters.
Mono- and multi-filament: Solef® and Hylar® are also used to manufacture mono- and multi-filaments.
Plumbing applications: Solef® has been also used for over 20 years in plumbing applications, including domestic water supply and heating systems thanks to its mechanical properties and ageing resistance.
Wire & cable: Solef® VDF-HFP copolymers are widely used for jacketing copper plenum cables and for plenum rated optical fiber raceways thanks to their outstanding fire resistance. Solef® VDF-CTFE copolymers combine improved flexibility, low shrinkage, and an expanded range of service temperatures.
Membranes & lithium-ion batteries: Solef® and Hylar® are also utilized in the fabrication of lithium-ion batteries and of special water filtration membranes.
Films: Solef® PVDF films are ideally suited as a component in back sheet laminates used in photovoltaic modules. PVDF offers an excellent combination of properties from UV stability to water vapor permeation resistance making it an excellent choice. Solef® can be laminated to PET to provide the traditional fluoropolymer-PET-fluoropolymer or fluoropolymer-PET structure currently available in the marketplace.
Foam: thanks to a novel technology, Solef® 80 000 series expanded PVDF for foams' production has been developed. This material is characterized by an exceptional lightweight and by the typical characteristics of pure PVDF.
Using this technology, the material is moulded into complex three-dimensional shapes much like injection moulded parts, and this retains the performance properties of PVDF such as fire, chemical and UV resistance, thermal stability and purity and also imparts new characteristics previously unobtainable, which are thermal insulation, light weight and resilience. The moulding technology allows for extremely complex systems to be moulded in one shot using aluminium tooling for cost effective manufacture.
Typical markets for this new technology are aerospace and and mass transit, chemical process industries, oil and gas and semi-conductor.
Moreover, Solef® and Hylar® offer novel solutions for several new challenging applications. Their characteristics - high purity, resistance to solvents and acids, excellent dimensional stability, mechanical strength, high dielectric and piezoelectric properties, UV stability, and ease of processing - make them suitable for cutting edge uses in aerospace, fuel cells, microelectronics, sensors, biotechnology, and robotics.
The information here indicated is intended as general, though exceptions exist in certain environments and with particular chemical agents used.
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