King aims to boost rubber additives business
ERJ staff report (LMH)
Norwalk, Connecticut - King Industries Inc. is looking for its relationship with a German company to boost the rubber additives business of both firms.
Norwalk-based King has worked with D.O.G. Deutsche Oelfabrik GmbH of Hamburg, Germany, for a number of years, but now the companies want to take advantage of D.O.G.'s expertise in factice additives.
Factice is vulcanised unsaturated vegetable or animal oil used as a processing aid and property modifier in rubber.
About five or six years ago, both King Industries and D.O.G. were undergoing some changes. The two companies got together and decided they needed a better presence in the North American market and more technical development for rubber chemicals.
And now the companies are putting a push on to give D.O.G.'s factice line of products a much bigger piece of the North American market. King said the focus will be to position the factice materials as technical products that are functional additives that have performance benefits in the compound prior to and after curing. One way to do that will be to support marketing efforts with technical papers designed to showcase the capabilities of the factice lines.
D.O.G said factices are used in extrusions and to improve the performance of rubber rollers. They also can provide a smooth surface and silky feeling for the end product, get rid of air bubbles in the calendering process and reduce shrinkage of non-cured material.
King said D.O.G.'s white factice, which is a peroxide-crosslinked material, will be one line his firm will focus its selling efforts on. It can be used in light-colored compounds and has less effect on physical properties than sulphur-cured additives.
“We need to put a better marketing effort behind it over the next couple of years,†King said. “We really need to establish ourselves as D.O.G. has done in Europe.â€
King Industries also will emphasise D.O.G.'s Deo-Stab line of vulcanization stabilisers. It is used for EPDM compounds that contain calcium oxide, especially for extruded profiles cured with sulphur.
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Full story by Bruce Meyer on Rubber & Plastics News
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