What is the difference between TPE and TPR?

What is the difference between TPE and TPR?

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TPR is the abbreviation of English Thermo-Plastic Rubber, and its Chinese name is Thermoplastic Rubber. In 1970s, foreign technical researchers modified a material called SBS elastomer, and finally made a material with rubber-like characteristics. Compared with the amorphous cross-linking property of rubber, this material is thermoplastic and can be cured at room temperature. According to its characteristics, people call it thermoplastic rubber, abbreviated as TPR.

There are unsaturated double bonds in the molecular chain of SBS elastomer, which are deficient in weather resistance, aging resistance and temperature resistance. Through continuous technological innovation, SEBS elastomer was developed. SEBS actually transforms unsaturated double bonds in SBS into single bond saturated molecular structure by hydrogenation, thus improving tear resistance, aging resistance, weather resistance and high temperature resistance. SEBS can also be modified, and is suitable for injection molding, blow molding, extrusion, salivation and other molding. At present, in the mixed modification industry of SEBS and SBS in Chinese mainland, the composite elastomer modified by SBS is customarily called TPR, while the composite elastomer modified by SEBS is called TPE. Affected by this, many domestic users continue to use this name.

However, some foreign users and other users have different names. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, users habitually call TPR, regardless of SEBS or SBS substrate. In addition, in Europe and America, SEBS, SBS and their mixed elastomers are called TPE-S and TPE-S.

In addition, if we understand TPR literally, it is called thermoplastic rubber, and thermoplastic elastomer TPE with hardness (such as 30~80A) similar to that of rubber materials, such as TPV and TPES materials, can also be regarded as TPR materials. Let's understand it from another angle!

Test model

Let's talk about TPE again Its full name is thermoplastic elastomer, which means thermoplastic elastomer in Chinese. Thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) is different from thermoplastic rubber (TPR) in literal sense, but its material range is also wider than that of thermoplastic rubber (there are more kinds of materials and a wider hardness range, such as Shore20~ 120A).

Therefore, for TPE, there is another broader concept besides the most common SEBS*** modified elastomer. That is to say, it also contains other thermoplastic elastomers besides TPES, such as polyurethane thermoplastic elastomer TPU, polyamide elastomer TPAE, polyester thermoplastic elastomer TPEE, polyolefin elastomer TPO, special dynamically vulcanized elastomer TPV and so on.

In fact, the most important thing is to choose the appropriate elastomer material according to the application requirements and meet the customer inspection standards.