Industrial Oil Gels

Kraton® polymers are excellent binders for making oil gels. Incorporation of a Kraton triblock polymer in oil gives a solid rubbery gel while a diblock polymer gives the oil the consistency of a thixotropic grease. These thermoplastic gels are used as filling compounds for telecommunication cables. Rubbery gels are used for cables based on copper wire whereas the thixotropic gels are used for optical fiber cables. These gels are also used to make specialty products such as air fresheners, clear candles, cosmetics, etc.

Features and Benefits

Polymers covering a wide range of architectures are available among the Kraton brand of polymers. Among the benefits this provides are the following.

• Low viscosity for easy mixing and handling
• Excellent clarity
• Excellent compatibility with mineral oils
• FDA coverage on most polymers
• Consistency ranging from rubbery gel to thixotropic grease
• Can be made tacky or non-tacky
• Can be crosslinked to give thermoset gels

Products

Cable filling compounds: Oil gels based on Kraton polymers have the right combination of consistency, service temperature and melt viscosity to give excellent cable filling compounds. They can be rubbery compounds for use with copper cables or they can be thixotropic greases for use with optical fiber cables. They have excellent compatibility with mineral oils and so prevent oil bleed out and they have low melt viscosity to make them easy to pump into the cable.

Specialty gels: Kraton polymers are used to make a variety of specialty oil gels. Rubbery gels made with triblock polymers are used in products such as air fresheners and clear candles whereas diblock polymers are used to make thixotropic liquid products such as lip balm and a variety of types of cosmetics.

Adhesive gels: Oil gels based on Kraton polymers can be used as elastomeric adhesives, sealants and gaskets. Frequently the gel will be formulated to include a tackifying resin to improve adhesion. An expandable microsphere filler can be included in the formulation as well. When this type of gel is heated, the gel will expand to fill a gap between two substrates. These expandable sealants are frequently based on a Kraton D polymer which is crosslinked with a free radical reaction to give a thermoset gel.