Thermoplastic polyurethanes are high-tech materials with a unique combination of very useful properties. For example, our products display high wear resistance, good resistance to oils, greases and solvents, and extremely good weather stability, combined with high elasticity.

As a result, TPU is used successfully in numerous segments of the economy, such as in the sports and recreation industry, and the automotive industry. Apart from wellknown applications, such as transparent skiboots from leading manufacturers, the folding rear window of the BMW Z8, and livestock ear tags from Allflex, I would also like to mention some new applications, like foldable kayaks, leg ropes for surfboards and breathable textiles. However, together with our colleagues in New Business, we are also pondering the world of tomorrow, where issues like “automotive flat cables” will play a key role for us.

It is also said that TPU closes the gap between rubber and hard thermoplastics. Thermoplastics on the one hand are plastics, that can be deformed plastically even after their hardening under the influence oft heat. Rubber on the other hand is very elastic and shows a good adhesion without sticking to something. Our flexible high-tech materials Desmopan® and Texin® (product line of Bayer MaterialScience LLC., USA) combine a multitude of those strengths, that mark rubber on the one side and thermoplastic materials on the other side. They can for instance be deformed under tensile and compression load, but find back afterwards to their basic position; furthermore they can be stretched when being heated, and when they are heated even more they can unboundedly be fused-in and reshaped.

Recapitulating it can be said, that our Desmopan´s and Texin´s principal advantages include the following properties, that make them very interesting for a broad variety of applications: