Low Volatile Environmentally Friendly Interior Black Masterbatch

SAN (AS) is the acrylonitrile-styrene copolymer component of ABS without the polybutadiene rubber phase. Using SAN rather than full ABS as a carrier provides two advantages in masterbatch production. First, SAN has a significantly lower melt viscosity than ABS at equivalent temperatures, which enables the high CB loading (40%) and the very high MFI (89.5) without requiring extreme shear that could degrade the carrier during masterbatch manufacture. ABS at 40% CB loading would be significantly harder to process to equivalent dispersion quality due to the rubber phase's effect on compound viscosity. Second, SAN is more thermally stable than ABS at the temperatures required to fully disperse 40% CB in the carrier — the absence of the polybutadiene rubber phase removes the main site of thermal oxidation that can generate volatile degradation products during masterbatch processing. The finished masterbatch, when added to ABS at 1–4%, introduces SAN carrier into an ABS matrix — a chemically compatible addition since SAN is one component of ABS itself.

The masterbatch is validated for both ABS and PC (listed in the compatibility specification). In ABS/PC blends — the most common engineering material for automotive interior visible parts — the SAN carrier is compatible with both the ABS phase and the PC phase of the blend. SAN is partially miscible with PC at the elevated temperatures of injection processing (230–260°C), which facilitates rapid integration of the masterbatch into the blend melt. The CIE L*A*B* values provided (L=27.45, A=0.04, B=-0.97) are measured in ABS; values in ABS/PC blends will be similar but may show minor variation depending on PC content (typically ±0.3 L, ±0.1 A/B). For ABS/PC blend applications requiring tight color specification, request a color chip from E-LUCK produced in your specific blend ratio and PC grade.