Nanotube compound eliminates hot spots
Canadian Plastics
Elimination of "hot spots" or uneven surface charge distribution was a major issue faced by Hand Held Products when creating a new image scanner. The Imageteam 3800ESD had to meet stringent regulation...
Elimination of “hot spots” or uneven surface charge distribution was a major issue faced by Hand Held Products when creating a new image scanner. The Imageteam 3800ESD had to meet stringent regulations to be suitable for use in a Class 100 clean room environment.
“The electronics industry is very concerned with electrostastic discharge (ESD),” explains Larry Ramsey-Macomber, product manager for Hand Held Products. “The other products out there were simply putting a case around a product. We addressed the whole system from the scanner to the cord. A conductive thermoplastic material was the key element in making this system work.”
RTP Co.’s conductive carbon nanotube polycarbonate compound, RTP 300, met the requirements for both conductivity and strength. “We could not find an off-the-shelf product that would meet both our condutivity and strength requirements. When you add other property requirements to a base resin, you usually have to give up the strength,” says Gerard Beckhusen, mechanical engineering manager for Hand Held Products.
In RTP’s 300 series resin, “nano”-sized carbon tubes provide an extremely high aspect ratio (length:diameter), capable of delivering ESD conductive properties at low loadings. Carbon nanotubes also create a more uniform conductive surface, eliminating dangerous “hot spots”.
RTP Co. 800-433-4787
