Water on the move

Life without water? Impossible! Whether for drinking, cooking or cleaning or just for fun in the swimming pool – water is essential for body and soul. But it must be pure and unpolluted. That's why materials used in fluid handling and drinking water applications have to meet particularly high standards. Only materials with outstanding properties such as Hostaform® POM are permitted to come into direct contact with drinking water.

Fluid handling and drinking water applications make extremely high demands on the materials used. The materials may not impair the quality of the water but at the same time are expected to withstand lime, chlorine and aggressive bathroom cleaners. They must allow cost-efficient production, functional handling and attractive design. This is no easy undertaking for product developers. Ticona has been addressing this challenge for 30 years and offers solutions that take account of all aspects. The secret of this success lies in the excellent all-round properties of Hostaform® POM and the company's long-standing system experience.

Impact and continuous-service stresses – no problem for POM

Whenever a mechanism needs to be both functional and robust, POM is the material of choice – in cartridges, faucet aerators, shower heads and water filters. A great deal is expected of Hostaform® POM. It must function reliably over a very long service life under continuous service stresses such as water pressure or high temperatures.

Withstands all types of water

In contact with aggressive, acid-containing bathroom cleaners, the special Hostaform® POM grade MR130ACS is five times more resistant than standard POM. Test results confirm that this product also is significantly more resistant to chlorine. As a result of its improved acid and chlorine stability, this media-resistant Hostaform POM is increasingly found in modern kitchen appliances – for example in internal components of dishwashers, coffee makers and espresso machines. For manufacturers that market their appliances internationally, the increased chlorine resistance of this special Hostaform® POM grade offers a particular advantage. The permitted chlorine content in drinking water still varies very widely from one region to another. In Europe, the permissible level of free chlorine at the faucet is generally just 0.6 ppm. In the US it is 5 ppm, while in Asia extreme levels of up to 250 ppm are even found in some cases.

Marry in haste, repent at leisure…

Drinking water and fluid handling applications manufacturers set the greatest challenge for Ticona, since the materials they use have to withstand high stresses for up to 50 years. Without a basic knowledge of the long-term properties of plastics under continuous stress, this cannot be accomplished. Standard test methods do not generally provide reliable data for designing complex components exposed to long-term stress. To study the anisotropic material properties of reinforced plastics in detail, Ticona uses a special method. Instead of measuring uniaxial stresses on the basis of the ISO tensile test bar, the experts at Ticona consider two stress components in pipes under pressure from within: axial stress in the circumferential direction and radial stress in the longitudinal direction. Only if the results of this material test are outstanding does Ticona give the green light for developing new products or making product improvements to help keep water on the move.