German drinking water regulations inspire new products from Kraiburg TPEs

Thermoplastic elastomer supplier Kraiburg TPE GmbH & Co. K.G. has developed new product lines to address new regulations for material safety for products in contact with drinking water and customer demand for lower carbon emissions.

Kraiburg's new line of drinking water compounds meets new requirements by the German Environment Agency, set to be enforced in 2025.

The TPEs intended for seals and sanitary components in contact with hot water, such as showerheads, are the first to meet the hot water requirements of KTW-BWGL, Hartmut Arheidt, industry market manager at Kraiburg, told Plastics News.

Other TPEs in the drinking-water line, intended for tubes and hoses, "have considerably improved tensile strength, tear resistance and … excellent kink resistance," Arheidt said.

PVC, a cheaper and more common material for potable water, is more brittle and likely to break than TPE, he said.

The new compounds are tasteless and odorless. They have been tested to prove resistance to the growth of microorganisms.

"All the ingredients of our compounds have to be … free of anything that could migrate into the drinking water system," Arheidt said.

"We expect the final KTW-BWGL certification to be provided before the end of this year," he said in a news release. "This will minimize our customers' approval effort and accelerate the launch of next-generation applications."

The materials will be launched to the company's global market in 2024 and will replace Kraiburg's previous drinking water products.

The compounds also provide better compression at high temperatures and can be processed more easily due to improved flow and de-molding properties. They also feature secure adhesion to polypropylene or polyethylene in multicomponent compounds.

The company's new bio-based TPEs are being tested for use in automotive and industrial components, Tobias Bruckner, advanced development project manager at Kraiburg, told PN at Fakuma 2023.

Made from byproducts of vegetable oil production or from plants "not suitable for food production," Bruckner said, the TPE grades, with up to 60 percent bio-based content, can be reprocessed "several times" without losing "mechanical strength properties compared to fossil-based (TPE)."

The materials have been tested in injection molding and extrusion and "the processing is similar, so customers don't have to change any molds," he said. "Maybe they have to adjust the parameters during the injection molding process."

The bio-based TPEs "have a lower product carbon footprint than established alternatives that are not based on renewable raw materials," the company said in a news release. They "can reduce a product's carbon footprint by up to 50 percent as compared to TPEs made of fossil-based materials."

The raw materials for the TPE is readily available, Bruckner said: "The byproducts are enough for the whole plastics industry."

But prices are still high for the raw bio-based content as the byproduct suppliers recognize the demand for it, he added.

"We were able to create … materials with different specifics and requirements from the TPE market," Bruckner said. "It's a big advantage (to) create adhesion to hard plastics like polyamides or ABS and polycarbonates."