CINCINNATI—Lord Corp. proposed alternatives for some of its legacy Chemlok adhesive products as part of its low-lead initiative, with the deadline coming up next year.
JR Nordstrom, application engineer for Lord, covered the changes during his presentation at the Rubber Roller Group Meeting in Cincinnati.
Lord will stop making its Chemlok legacy products that have lead formulated into the batch, he said. The company hasn't formulated any new products with lead as an ingredient in 15 years. The term "low-lead" is used rather than "no-lead" because Lord can't guarantee there won't be trace amounts of lead in some ingredients that are brought in.
The deadline for the legacy products is Dec. 31, 2020, he said.
"A lot of folks have worked on getting switched over to these. But again, 2020 sounds like a long way off, but it's not that far," Nordstrom said.
The products being replaced include:
• Chemlok 220 and 220X, replaced by Chemlok 6224, 6125 and 6220;
• Chemlok 225X, replaced by Chemlok 6225;
• Chemlok 250, replaced by Chemlok 6150;
• Chemlok 252X and 252H, replaced by Chemlok 6411, 6108, 6100;
• Chemlok 253H and 253X, replaced by Chemlok 6253; and
• Chemlok 256, replaced by Chemlok 6258.
"If you need any help on what to transfer from, just reach out to your Chemlok suppliers. They'll be glad to help you with this," he said.
The low-lead products have been on the market for about 20 years, and Lord tested the replacement products in-house to determine the appropriate alternatives, Nordstrom said. Customers on the automotive industrial side have adopted the newer products and have been using them for a number of years with success.
"A lot of the newer, low-lead products have better performance than our legacy products," Nordstrom said. "You'll see an improvement on that side as you transfer over to those."
Customers should connect with suppliers to start the change to the new products and run trials in-house to get used to them, he said.
"I want to make sure everybody's aware of the upcoming deadline," Nordstrom said. "Start doing a transfer over to these low-leads, because one way or another, it's coming. It's not getting extended past Dec. 31, 2020."