ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the fabrication of melt-processible fluoroplastics. Because of the nature of these materials, they can be processed by most conventional methods used for thermoplastic polymers, such as injection molding, transfer molding, extrusion, blow molding, rotomolding/rotolining, and thermoforming. Several of them are suitable for powder coating. The fluoropolymers involved are perfluoroplastics, that is fully fluorinated polymers (PFA/MFA and FEP) and other fluoroplastics containing hydrogen and/or chlorine, such as ETFE, PVDF, PCTFE, ECTFE, THV Fluoroplastics, and EFEP. Unlike most thermoplastics, several of the fluoroplastics require the use of corrosion resistant parts in the processing equipment. Some of them can be blended with other thermoplastics to provide materials with unique properties. Some of them can be used to prepare fluorinated thermoplastic vulcanizates by dynamic vulcanization.
