October 17, 2017 — BASF has recently developed the world's first semi-crystalline polyamide Ultramid® Vision, which transmits most light. This material has both extremely high light transmittance and low light scattering, so it can be used to produce translucent and fully transparent parts facing chemically aggressive environments. In addition, this unique polyamide has excellent UV, high temperature, scratch and flame resistance. Ultramid Vision can be used in many applications, especially for visual inspection of components, lighting and luminaire designs. It provides a versatile alternative to commonly used materials such as amorphous aliphatic polyamides, polycarbonates, and styrene-acrylonitrile copolymers. The new polyamides are currently available worldwide.
Excellent features at a glance
The physical and thermal properties of Ultramid Vision are similar to those of conventional polyamide 6 materials without reinforcement, but the superior visual characteristics far exceed the latter. Ordinary semi-crystalline standard polyamides are nearly opaque at a thickness of one millimeter and look very blurry; but for parts made with Ultramid Vision, the line of sight can easily penetrate even if the wall thickness reaches several millimeters. Even in high temperature and high humidity environments, the haze and light transmittance of these parts are almost the same as at normal temperature.
Thanks to its balanced properties, including good physical properties, processability, scratch resistance and chemical resistance, and an attractive price point, Ultramid Vision offers an ideal alternative to other fully transparent and translucent materials. It also has excellent UV resistance and is suitable for direct sunlight. The UV resistance test uses a conventional accelerated weathering test method to test indoor and outdoor weathering conditions. In addition, Ultramid Vision is also extremely resistant to stress cracking caused by sunscreens, detergents, solvents, fats and oils.
Helping many industries create stylish looks
In addition to the colorless and transparent basic material B3K un, Ultramid Vision can also provide customers with customized materials with different light transmittance and high transmittance, including special color products. At the same time, Ultramid Vision can also be dyed using polyamide-based masterbatches (available through BASF Color Solutions). In addition, the high light transmittance Ultramid Vision can be combined with other polyamide materials for multi-component injection molding processes to easily produce a variety of multifunctional parts including transparent / lighting parts.
Ultramid Vision is particularly suitable for applications that require visual inspection, such as level indicators. This new polyamide can also be used for impact-resistant and chemical-resistant lampshades in lighting equipment. Other areas of application include backlight switches and buttons, or diffuser shades in chemically aggressive environments. Because Ultramid Vision can be dyed into any color with low mobility, lightfast colorants, it can achieve a variety of colored lighting effects, creating endless possibilities for form and function design.