TPE/TPR: Special Anti-slip Properties and Comparison with Related Materials
Time of issue:2025-08-09
TPE/TPR: Special Anti-slip Properties and Comparison with Related Materials
TPE/TPR has special anti-slip properties, which provide more possibilities for people's work and life. Its adjustable hardness and physical properties offer a wide range of imagination and design space for product designers, and its environmentally friendly, non-toxic characteristics make it worthy of consumers' trust. TPE/TPR is both a soft rubber material and a plastic raw material. Related materials with similar properties to TPE/TPR include EVA/POE, PVC, silicone rubber, (vulcanized) rubber, TPU/TPV, etc. The special anti-slip properties and application comparisons of these materials are as follows:
EVA/POE: They belong to a category of polyolefin elastomers (TPO). Although these elastomers have a soft touch, due to their molecular monomer units being a single straight-chain olefin polymer structure without benzene rings, the anti-slip performance of the materials is lacking, and their anti-slip and wear resistance are relatively poor. Their application in injection molding of soft rubber products is limited, generally used in some craft ornaments, small toy products, and toughening modification.
PVC soft rubber: When a hydrogen atom in polyethylene is replaced by chlorine, polyethylene becomes polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Although PVC has good elasticity, it lacks a rubbery texture and its anti-slip performance is average. In addition, the environmental performance of PVC has also affected its application space.
Silicone rubber: The molecular chain structure of silicone rubber only endows it with excellent resilience, aging resistance, weather resistance, and excellent environmental protection characteristics. Silicone rubber shells have excellent soft touch, but silicone rubber is not good at anti-slip performance.
(Vulcanized) rubber: This material has excellent wear resistance and anti-slip performance. The vulcanized rubber system has excellent heat resistance, chemical resistance, and physical and mechanical properties, making its applications focus more on industrial fields. Automobile tires and industrial conveyor belts are among its most important applications.
TPU/TPV: These are two common types of thermoplastic elastomers. Both materials have certain rubber anti-slip properties, but they are relatively poor in terms of soft touch.
TPE/TPR materials: These refer to SEBS and SBS styrene-based elastomer alloys. This type of material has a rigid styrene molecular structure and flexible butadiene (or butylene-ethylene) molecular chain structure, enabling TPE/TPR to have both certain strength and excellent flexible touch.
The strength, wear resistance, and anti-slip performance of TPE/TPR are not as good as those of vulcanized rubber, which limits its application fields to some daily products, hardware tools, and electronic product fields. Product application cases:
(1) Handles and grips: Hardware tools, bicycle and locomotive handles, luggage handles, knife and kitchen utensil handles.
(2) Anti-slip mats: Such as anti-slip foot mats for cars, anti-slip mats for car interior accessories, mobile phone anti-slip mats (with strong viscosity on the material surface), anti-slip mats for bathrooms/toilets, cup mats (injection-molded with composite or single material), anti-slip bowl mats, etc.
(3) Soles: TPR soles have excellent anti-slip performance, and compared with rubber, they have much less odor, and feel softer and more comfortable when worn.
(4) Various (industrial, children's stroller) casters: In the caster industry, both TPE/TPR and TPU are used. However, TPR has a softer anti-slip property and can be used to produce silent casters for the medical industry. Casters made of TPU material produce relatively loud friction noise.
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