What Are The Differences between TPE TPU And PU Materials?

In daily life, when we hear English letters such as TPE, TPU, and PU, we feel very unfamiliar and have no idea what they are. However, for some factories, TPE, TPU, and PU are three common materials. Actually, most people still don't understand the differences between TPE, TPU, and PU. Below, we will provide a detailed introduction to the differences among the three.

 

TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer) is a thermoplastic elastomer material with high strength, high resilience, and injection molding properties. It has a wide range of applications, is environmentally friendly, non-toxic, and safe, and has excellent coloring properties. TPE is environmentally friendly, non-toxic, and safe, with a wide range of hardness. It has excellent coloring properties, soft touch, weather resistance, fatigue resistance, and temperature resistance. Its processing performance is superior, and it does not require vulcanization. It can be reused to reduce costs. It can be used for secondary injection molding, coated and bonded with matrix materials such as PP, PE, PC, PS, ABS, or formed separately.

 

TPU polyurethane, abbreviated as Thermoplastic Urethane in Chinese, is a polymer material formed by the reaction and polymerization of diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI), toluene diisocyanate (TDI), macromolecular polyols, and chain extenders. It is mainly divided into polyester and polyether types. It has a wide range of hardness (60HA-85HD), is wear-resistant, oil resistant, transparent, and has good elasticity. It is widely used in daily necessities, sports goods, toys, decorative materials, and other fields. Halogen-free flame retardant TPU can also replace soft PVC to meet the environmental requirements of more and more fields.

 

PU is the abbreviation for polyurethane material, also known as polyurethane. It is a type of polymer material. It is a polymer compound with a - NHCOO - unit in its molecular structure, which is formed by a mixture reaction of isocyanate and hydroxyl groups. The characteristics of PU materials are very obvious, which is also the key to achieving a broad market. In the home decoration industry, it is generally used for skin production in living room sofas and other areas. PU, also known as regenerated leather. Its characteristics are light weight, wear-resistant and non slip, cold resistance, and chemical resistance, but it is expensive, easy to tear, has poor mechanical strength, and has poor tear resistance. PU has fewer colors. The main color is black or brown. The texture is relatively soft, suitable for making leisure bags or furniture skins, and the price is not high, making it easy to fade. PU fabric is a simulated leather fabric, synthesized from artificial materials, with a genuine leather texture, very sturdy and durable, and affordable. People often refer to PU leather as a type of leather material, such as PVC leather, Italian bran paper, recycled leather, etc. The manufacturing process is slightly more complex. Due to the good tensile strength of PU base fabric, it can not only be coated on the base fabric, but also be included in it, so that the presence of the base fabric cannot be seen from outside.

 

The characteristics of TPE

1.It can be processed using general thermoplastic molding machines without the need for special processing equipment.

2.Production efficiency has significantly improved. It can be vulcanized directly using a rubber injection molding machine, reducing the time from about 20 minutes to less than 1 minute; Due to the short required vulcanization time, an extruder can also be used for direct vulcanization, greatly improving production efficiency.

3.Easy to recycle and reduce costs. The waste generated during the production process (such as burrs and extruded rubber) and the final waste products can be directly returned for reuse; Used TPE waste can be easily recycled and reused, reducing environmental pollution and expanding the source of renewable resources.

4.Energy saving. Most thermoplastic elastomers do not require vulcanization or have a short vulcanization time, which can effectively save energy. Taking the energy consumption of high-pressure hose production as an example: rubber is 188MJ/kg, TPE is 144MJ/kg, which can save more than 25% energy.

5.Wider application areas. Due to the advantages of both rubber and plastic, TPE has opened up new application areas for the rubber industry.

6.Can be used for enhancing and toughening plastics. It has strong self strengthening ability, simplified formula, less restriction of the influence of the compounding agent on the polymer, and easier control of quality and performance. However, the heat resistance of TPE is not as good as that of rubber, and its physical properties decrease significantly with increasing temperature, thus limiting its applicability. At the same time, compression deformation, elastic recovery, and durability are relatively poor compared to rubber, and the price is often higher than similar rubber. Nevertheless, the advantages of TPE are still very prominent, and various new TPE products are constantly being developed. As a new type of energy-saving and environmentally friendly rubber raw material, its development prospects are very promising.

The characteristics of TPU

1.Wear resistance

2.Wide range of hardness: By changing the ratio of TPU reaction components, products with different hardness can be obtained, and as the hardness increases, the products still maintain good elasticity.

3.High mechanical strength: TPU products have outstanding load-bearing capacity, impact resistance, and shock absorption performance. Outstanding cold resistance: TPU has a relatively low glass transition temperature and maintains good elasticity, flexibility, and other physical properties even at minus 35 degrees Celsius.

4.Good processing performance: TPU can be processed using common thermoplastic material processing methods, such as injection, extrusion, rolling, etc. Meanwhile, TPU can be processed together with certain polymer materials to obtain polymer alloys with complementary properties.

5.Oil resistant, water resistant, and mold resistant.

6. Good recyclability.

The characteristics of PU

1.Good physical properties, resistance to twists and turns, good flexibility, high tensile strength, and breathability. The pattern of PU fabric is first hot pressed onto the surface of semi-finished leather using a patterned paper, waiting for it to cool down before separating the paper and leather for surface treatment.

2.High breathability, with a temperature permeability of 8000-14000g/24h/cm2, high peel strength, and high water pressure resistance, it is an ideal material for the surface and bottom layers of waterproof and breathable clothing fabrics.

3.The price is high, and the price of PU fabrics with certain special requirements is 2-3 times higher than that of PVC fabrics. The pattern paper required for general PU fabrics can only be scrapped after 4-5 uses;

4.The service life of patterned rollers is long, so the cost of PU leather is higher than that of PVC leather.

Summary: PU is the general term for polyurethane, while TPU is a thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer. TPE is a polyolefin elastomer, while TPU is a polyurethane elastomer. TPU has much better wear resistance, and its hardness can be very low.

NANJING HAISI is professional manufacturer of Plastic Extruder, we supply Twin Screw Extruder, Single Screw Extruder, Plastic Recycling Extruder, Two Stage Extruder, Lab Scale Machinery, Mixing and Feeding Machine, Cooling and Pelletizing Machine, Crushing Machine and so on.