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Extrusion Compounding and Boron Nitride
SpecialChem | Donal McNally - Sep 26, 2013

Extrusion has been known as an industrial process for centuries. It is the forcing of a malleable material through a
shaping orifice or die, originally by mechanical and later by hydraulic means. These processes were limited to unit
production, i.e., one extruded form was made in each actuating stroke. It was not until the 1870's that continuous
extrusion processes emerged in the rubber industry with the use of screw extruders. In such machines, the rubber
mixture was heated and conveyed forward on an Archimedean screw and then pumped out through a die. A sketch of
such a screw is shown in Figure 1 below. The pressure needed to force the material through the die is obtained either
by decreasing the flight depth as shown in the figure, or by decreasing the screw pitch (the distance between the
flights).
These early rubber extruder screws had low length to diameter
(L/D) ratios, as low as 4 to 1 in some cases. Perhaps 60 years
after its use in the rubber industry, screw extrusion technology
was employed for thermoplastics, initially for materials such as
cellulosics and polyvinyl chloride. With the later development of
nylon, screw profiles required a transition region to
accommodate the rapid shift from solid to melt typical of semi-crystalline polymers, so that such screws had three
distinct zones.
Feed or solids conveying zone. Here, resin is fed into the extruder. Channel depth is usually the same
throughout the zone.
Melting, transition or compression zone. Most of the resin is melted in this section, and the channel depth gets
progressively smaller.
Metering or melt conveying zone. Channel depth is the same throughout the zone, which melts the last
particles and mixes to a uniform temperature and composition.
To provide for these zones, screw L/D ratios increased to a range around 16:1, and as extruders were called on to
provide more functions, L/D ratios continued to increase, now reaching as high as 36:1 in some instances, such as
two-stage (vented) screws. A vented screw incorporates a decompression zone for vacuum venting and a second
metering zone to re-pressurize the melt to get it through the resistance of the
screws and the die.
As the plastics industry grew, a wide range of compounds was developed both by
polymer manufacturers and custom compounders. Initially these compounds were
made by dry-blending the components and feeding the mixture at the feed throat
of the extruder. As it became apparent, especially in the case of fiberglass-
reinforced materials, that better properties could be obtained by feeding fillers
and reinforcements directly into the polymer melt, screw profiles became more
and more complicated, with provision for side-feeders and the addition of (often
proprietary) mixing and shearing elements into the design.
At some point, there is only so much that can be achieved with a single screw.
The more specialized the design is, the less flexible the extrusion process
becomes. Nevertheless, for economic reasons, single screw extruders remain the
workhorses of the industry, particularly for large volume processing of a single
material or group of similar materials.

Figure 1: Simple Extruder Screw





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Twin screw extrusion of plastics also appeared in the early part
of the 20th century. Continuing evolution of this process led to
the development of machines with both counter-rotating and co-
rotating, and intermeshing and non-intermeshing screws. Co-
rotating intermeshing screw (CRIS) extruders are most
commonly used in plastics compounding applications. As shown
in Figure 2, in such machines, the root of one screw is wiped by
the crests of the adjacent screw flights so that they are often
described as self-wiping machines. Material flows along the
screws following a spiral figure eight pattern until reaching the
breaker plates and strand extrusion die.
CRIS compounding extruders typically employ modular screws and barrels and thus can be configured to manufacture
a wide variety of compositions. Their relatively higher cost compared with single screw machines is offset by their
much greater flexibility. Different process zones can be created for conveying, plasticizing, mixing and shearing,
homogenizing, devolatilizing and pressure build-up. Figure 3 shows a conveying section mated to a kneading section
on an assembled pair of screws.
Screw element design technology for CRIS-type compounders continues to advance and has generated highly
specialized screw elements for different processing stages including intake, melting, venting, mixing and metering.
Some of these designs have been patented by their manufacturers.
The proliferation of screw element components both enables process
optimization for various feed stocks and makes the overall screw
design choice more challenging. Equipment makers make
recommendations based on their compounding research with more
common materials, for instance polypropylene and talc, or polyamide
and glass fibers, but compounders may find it desirable to carry out
their own studies to get the best results in terms of throughput and
product mechanical properties.
Compounding boron nitride (BN) is a case in point. Boron nitride is a
remarkable material. It does not occur in nature, but is made in a high
temperature reaction from boron containing materials and nitrogen. It is
converted to a crystalline hexagonal form, h-BN, wherein hexagonal
platelets can slide on each other like graphite. This material has the
interesting property of being an excellent conductor of heat, while remaining an electrical insulator. h-BN has a very
high aspect ratio (~20:1), such that it has an in-plane thermal conductivity of about 600 W/m.K and a through-plane
conductivity of 30 W/m.K. The overall average conductivity is about 60 W/m.K.
The relatively low density of h-BN means it can be compounded into plastics without producing an overly dense final
resin. However, compounding expertise is needed to ensure good wet-out of the filler and achieve best physical
properties. Highly loaded h-BN compounds can provide thermal conductivities up to 10 W/m.K., far greater than the
values for conventional electrically insulating plastics (~0.2 W/mK on average). This enables these interesting
formulations to provide value in applications including consumer electronic devices, aerospace and vehicle cooling
systems, motor and battery housings, temperature sensors, heat exchangers and other systems where thermal
energy must be dissipated.
Manufacturing highly loaded h-BN compounds presents challenges, some typical of other materials and some rather
different. The key issues include achieving and consistently maintaining the correct filler loading at an acceptable
production rate, fully wetting out the h-BN particles and maintaining adequate temperature control of the strands
exiting the die.
Properly calibrated gravimetric feeders set to match the highest starve-fed throughput of the extruder (typically < 40%)
will help meet the first requirement. As h-BN is a light fluffy material, shovel elements are useful for getting it into the
extruder. However, while the concave flights of such elements can convey high volumes of the low bulk density h-BN,
they are not efficient at building pressure to move material forward against powder build up at the end of a side feeder.

Figure 2: Co-rotating Twin Screw Extruder


Figure 3: Co-rotating Screw Sections





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Good filler-particle wet-out is essential for proper stress transfer from polymer matrix to filler and to consistently obtain
the best mechanical properties in the resulting composite. This can be facilitated by use of surface treatments such as
silanes, but efficient mixing in the extruder also plays a role. There is evidence that including fractional mixing element
blocks in the screw design enables better results at higher throughputs than with conventional kneading blocks and
also improves the balance between in-plane and through-plane thermal. To get in touch with the exclusive
manufacturer of fractional mixing element blocks for your equipment, please ask Momentive for contact details.
Depending on the system melt temperature, the high thermal conductivity of the composite may lead to uneven strand
cooling at the die. If this happens, varying strand stiffness can cause strand handling problems. This can be avoided
by ensuring uniform temperature across the die and particularly the die face. A further challenge is making sure the
extruded strands are not too cold, and hence overly brittle on arrival at the pelletizer or chopper. This concern may be
addressed either with a hot water bath or by allowing the strands to air-cool on a carrier belt.
Momentive Performance Materials Inc., the world's largest BN manufacturer, is launching new BN-based
formulations for creating thermally conductive and electrically insulating plastics at a potentially lower cost than
materials already in the market. These hybrid fillers are being marketed under the CoolFX trade name. These new
CoolFX hybrid filler formulations can be cost effective solutions for thermal management applications because they
achieve high thermal conductivities at lower BN loadings. They are now available for sampling as single powders,
offering more consistent feeding in compounding than traditional BN powder.
Compared with the neat base resins, compounds made from these new hybrid filler formulations may have faster in-
mold cooling and hence can potentially be molded on shorter cycles, yielding improved press utilization and
consequently higher productivity. The hybrid fillers also can deliver improved mechanical properties with reduced
anisotropy in molded parts.
During in-house testing of the new formulations in nylon 6, Momentive researchers have achieved tensile strengths
approaching 10,000 psi and notched Izod impact values of about 30 J/m while still delivering thermal conductivities in
excess of 5 W/m.K. Other compositions have shown thermal conductivities up to 10 W/m.K. Most significantly, it is
estimated that cost reductions from 10% to 30% over existing BN-only compounds can be obtained with the new
hybrid fillers.
From their own compounding studies, Momentive researchers can advise on twin screw compounding parameters for
various BN formulations, including recommendations on equipment, screw design, material handling and process
operating parameters. To discuss any of these issues, please contact Momentive through SpecialChem. Additional
information on Momentive Boron Nitride solutions including case studies and technical data sheets are available at
SpecialChem.