The difference between adding fiberglass PEEK and pure PEEK is surprisingly significant!
Pure PEEK raw materials are generally brownish gray in color, also known as PEEK-1000. They are generally made from pure polyetheretherketone resin, which has the best toughness, excellent performance, and impact resistance among PEEK grades. PEEK-1000 can be disinfected using the most convenient disinfection methods (steam, drying heat, ethanol, and Y-rays), and the raw material composition for manufacturing PEEK-1000 complies with the EU and US FDA regulations on food hardness. These characteristics make it suitable for widespread use in medical, pharmaceutical, and food processing industries.
PEEK with added fiberglass has a darker color and appears coffee colored, especially the reinforced plastic PEEK-GF30 filled with 30% fiberglass, which has better rigidity and creep resistance, as well as better dimensional stability. It is more suitable for manufacturing structural parts and is an ideal material for manufacturing industrial processing components.
PEEK has excellent comprehensive performance, but its glass transition temperature is significantly lower than that of high-temperature resistant amorphous plastics. However, the addition of glass fibers precisely makes up for this deficiency. Strengthening PEEK composite materials can compensate for or enhance the shortcomings of PEEK performance, improve its heat resistance and bending resistance, improve its processing performance, reduce costs, enhance corrosion resistance, etc., and achieve comprehensive performance better than single component PEEK raw materials. At the same time, PEEK without any antioxidant added will undergo degradation and cross-linking of its own molecular chains with the extension of insulation time in the molten state, resulting in an increase in polymer viscosity and a decrease in some properties, seriously affecting the processing performance and product stability of PEEK. Therefore, high-temperature resistant antioxidants need to be added to the formula to avoid the degradation and cross-linking of molecular chains at high temperatures.