Carbon fiber reinforced polyether ether ketone (PEEK) composites in food packaging machinery applications

The high-performance material polyether ether ketone (PEEK) is increasingly used in food and beverage packaging machinery, compared with traditional engineering plastics, PEEK has a higher overall performance. Especially in high temperature, corrosion, steam and acid and alkali and other harsh environments still show high temperature resistance, self-lubricating, wear resistance, high strength and high dimensional stability and other advantages. Therefore, it can greatly improve the service life of key components of packaging equipment, such as plugs and pulls, core wheels, bushings, gears, etc., reducing downtime for maintenance and improving the productivity and stability of packaging equipment.

In order to further enhance the performance advantages of polyether ether ketone in different working environments, carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composites have become a new form of application. There are many cases of using carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composites to replace traditional materials in international advanced food and beverage packaging machinery. For example, in the cleaning and conveying equipment using 30% carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composite materials to make gears and chains, to replace the previous use of MC nylon, so that its life expectancy increased by three to five times, while reflecting the higher mechanical strength and dimensional stability and other advantages. Another example, in the low-speed labeling machine generally choose copper alloy as its hot stamping printer oscillating gear material, and high-speed labeling machine must choose PEEK oscillating gear to meet the use of requirements. The use of 30% carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composite oscillating gear in the use of the process does not need to add lubricant, running noise is reduced by a lot, and the service life than the copper alloy increased by three times.

Carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composite materials in high temperature application cases are also more typical, for example, food and beverage packaging machinery, high-speed conveyor line, the original has been used in the polyoxymethylene (POM) material, low-friction conveyor boards engaged with each other. However, the working temperature of polyformaldehyde (POM) is limited to below 80 ℃, can not be applied to high-temperature environment, and can not adapt to the high speed conveying line of high wear-resistant requirements, the general use of two months that is worn out, and the use of carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composite materials made of chain plate can be used in high temperature environment as well as high-speed operation of the harsh conditions for up to one year.

However, on the current application ratio and application form, carbon fiber reinforced peek composites in food and beverage packaging machinery still only stay in the smaller parts and components, used to enhance the performance of the whole machine. Moreover, the vast majority of these applications are using carbon fiber powder or short fiber reinforcement, there has not been the application of continuous carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composites representative case.

At the same time, in the medical field, especially in orthopedic surgery medical devices, there are more continuous carbon fiber reinforced composite materials for orthopedic targeting stents, fixators and other mature cases, such as Wuxi Zhishang New Material Technology Co., Ltd. using its own production of carbon fiber thermoplastic composite prepreg made of orthopedic surgery continuity carbon fiber reinforced PEEK parts and components products, and imports of products compared to the performance of no significant gap. There is no obvious gap between the performance of these products and that of imported products.

In fact, continuous carbon fiber reinforced peek and powder carbon fiber/short-cut carbon fiber reinforced peek in the comprehensive performance compared to a greater improvement. Then, with the rapid development of food and beverage packaging machinery industry and production standards continue to improve, continuous carbon fiber reinforced PEEK composite materials in food and beverage packaging machinery will gradually emerge more innovative applications.