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06/23/1999
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| After over 10 year's involvement in the field of cyanate esters, a new dedicated 1000 metric tons plant has been built in the Valais Works and is currently going on stream. Cyanate esters are a class of high performance resins for use in advanced electronic, aerospace and industrial applications. |
Cyanates riding high
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| Cyanates are a class of resins whose common feature is the cyanate ester group on an aromatic ring, which will polymerize to very stable triazine structures under heat and/or catalysis. These high-performance resins are based on bisphenol A, its derivatives or on novolaks, and are reacted with the company's own cyanogen chloride to produce neat resins, solutions and prepolymers which are sold under the Primaset® trade name. |
New and old applications
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| The range of applications of cyanates has grown dramatically in recent years. In addition to the known core areas of aircraft construction and the manufacture of printed circuit boards for the computer industry, cyanates are also used as binder for high-performance abrasive wheels, in mold construction, in the powder coating sector and in potting compounds. Generally-speaking, cyanates are easier to process than competing resin systems and they allow operating temperatures of up to 400º C, improve impact strength and permit higher clock frequencies of electronic components due to excellent dielectric properties. Cyanates can also be blended and reacted with epoxy- and imide resins. |
New in-house process
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The construction of a specialized cyanate plant was inevitable given the considerable upsurge in demand for cyanates in recent years. Special attention was paid to the testing of the individual steps involved in all the product flows and to process standardization. A number of innovative approaches were also pursued at this stage. Many of the products and principal process steps are patent-protected. The whole operation places very high demands on the process, measurement technology, analysis and control since the intermediates and incompletely reacted feed materials can catalyze the polymerization even during manufacture, a situation that must be absolutely avoided.
The construction work is finalized according to plan and the plant is currently commissioned. Existing market requirements are being met by production in other factories. The chemical activities of the Alusuisse-Lonza Group are organized in two Divisions (Fine Chemicals & Specialties and Intermediates & Additives), which both market products under the Lonza name. Lonza Fine Chemicals & Specialties develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of complex fine chemicals, intermediates and chemical specialties. The Division has 11 production facilities in the USA, Switzerland, England, the Czech Republic and China, and employs some 4,346 people. In 1998, it generated sales of more than 1510 billion Swiss francs.
For further information please contact:
Dr. Walter Eschenmoser
Lonza Ltd., Basel, Switzerland
t + 41 61 316 83 63
f + 41 61 316 93 63
walter.eschenmoser@lonzagroup.com
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