Huntsman’s footwear team announced the launch of two new Avalon TPU grades and three new water-blown polyurethane technologies at Simac 2019.
At the footwear fair, the company promoted the two highly transparent TPU grades Avalon 65 DHT and Avalon 85 AHT. The TPUs are the latest additions to Huntsman’s Avalon AHT range, which was first launched in 2014. Providing harder and softer alternatives to Avalon 90 AHT and Avalon 95 AHT, the new grades join a family of products that is said to offer very good UV resistance combined with high mechanical properties.
Four months after launching its Daltoped AquaPUR technology, the company has developed three additional technologies – creating a portfolio of fully water-blown polyether soling solutions that provide very good flow and surface definition and can improve the look and feel of shoe soles:
- Daltoped AquaPUR Grip technology delivers all the advantages of Daltoped AquaPUR technology but offers a softer compound resulting in greater slip resistance.
- Daltoped AquaPUR Lite technology enables footwear manufacturers to decrease the weight of shoe soles by up to 35 % and is ideal for the production of slippers and low heel sandals.
- Daltoped AquaPUR Lite Energy technology is said to be ideal for high quality footwear thanks to its superior energy return which offers up to 40 % more rebound than standard systems.
According to Huntsman, the Daltoped AquaPUR technologies are designed for footwear manufacturers that want to make the switch to using a water-blown system but do not want to compromise on quality. As standard, Daltoped AquaPUR technologies provide good cold flex properties plus hydrolysis and slip resistance. Suitable for the direct-on process and casting of unit soles and midsoles, Daltoped AquaPUR technologies are compatible with standard polyurethane processing machines. Offering very good flow characteristics, they can enable the production of complex soling designs in multiple colour combinations. They also have superior blend stability in the machine tank and can be processed at room temperature, which helps reduce energy consumption and shortens the production cycle.