TEXTURED ARTICLES AND METHODS FOR THEIR MANUFACTURE

Abstract

Provided are textured articles, compositions and processes for their manufacturing, specifically molded articles, having textured or patterned, e.g. randomly-textured, surfaces. In particular, the disclosure concerns compositions and processes for manufacturing molded polymer-based articles that visually and texturally mimic or imitate various materials, such as concrete, marble, ceramics, wood, etc.

Claims

1. A composition for injection-molding a textured article, the composition comprising at least one first polymer having a melt flow index (MFI) of at most 8 g/10 min, at least one second polymer having a melt flow index of at least 12 g/min, at least one mineral-based additive, at least one blowing agent and at least one pigment.

2. The composition of claim 1, wherein each of the first and second polymers is a thermoplastic polymer.

3. The composition of claim 2, wherein each of the first and second polymers is independently selected from polypropylene, polyethylene, and polystyrene and blends and co-polymers thereof.

4. The composition of claim 3, wherein both the first polymer and the second polymer are from the polypropylenes group.

5. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 4, the composition comprising at least 20 wt % of said at least one first polymer.

6. The composition of claim 5, wherein the composition comprises between about 20 and about 70 wt %, of said first polymer.

7. The composition of claim 5, wherein the composition comprises between about 30 and about 60 wt % of said first polymer.

8. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the total amount of said second polymer in the composition is at least 5 wt %.

9. The composition of claim 8, wherein the composition comprises a total amount of between about 10 and about 35 wt % of said second polymer.

10. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the weight ratio (w/w) of the first polymer to the second polymer in the composition is at least about 1.

11. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the amount of said at least one first polymer in the composition is larger than the total amount of the second polymer in the composition.

12. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 11, wherein the at least one mineral-based additive is selected from a carbonate, a silicate, an oxide, a hydroxide and any mixture thereof.

13. The composition of claim 12, wherein the mineral-based additive talc or a derivative thereof.

14. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 13, wherein the mineral-based additive is present in the composition in an amount of at least about 10 wt %.

15. The composition of claim 14, wherein the mineral-based additive is present in the composition in an amount of between about 15 and 30 wt %.

16. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 15, comprising between about 0.5 and about 3 wt % of said at least one blowing agent.

17. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 16, comprising a total amount of pigment of between about 0.5 and about 5 wt %.

18. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 17, comprising two or more pigments.

19. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 18, further comprising at least one texturization additive selected from a powder, flakes, granules, fibers, spheres or having an irregular geometrical form.

20. The composition of claim 19, wherein the texturization additive is in the form of fibers.

21. The composition of claim 20, wherein the amount of fibers in the composition is up to about 10 wt %.

22. The composition of any one of claims 19 to 21, wherein the texturization additive is at least one polymeric material in particulate form having a melting temperature that is higher than the melting temperature of the first and the second polymers.

23. The composition of claim 22, wherein said polymeric material in particulate form that has an average particle size of at least about 0.5 mm.

24. The composition of any one of claims 1 to 23, further comprising at least one functional additive, e.g. selected from the group consisting of foaming agents, surfactants, UV stabilizers, radical scavengers, anti-oxidants, matting agents, and plasticizers.

25. An injection-molded article textured over at least a portion of its external surface to mimic or imitate a composite naturally-based material, the article being made from a composition of any one of claims 1 to 24.

26. An injection-molded article textured over at least a portion of its external surface to mimic or imitate a composite naturally-based material, the article comprising at least two polymers, at least one mineral-based additive and at least one pigment.

27. The injection-molded article of claim 26, comprising at least one first polymer having a melt flow index (MFI) of at most about 8 g/10 min and at least one second polymer having a melt flow index of at least about 12 g/min.

28. The injection-molded article of claim 26 or 27, further comprising at least one blowing agent and/or decomposition products thereof.

29. The article of any one of claims 25 to 28, wherein said portion of external surface is randomly-textured.

30. The article of any one of claims 25 to 29, wherein the surface of the article is substantially two-dimensional.

31. The article of any one of claims 25 to 29, wherein the surface is that of a three-dimensional article.

32. The article of any one of claims 25 to 31, wherein the at least one portion of the article's surface is its whole external surface.

33. A process for manufacturing a molded article being textured over at least a portion of its external surface, the process comprising: molding a composition of any one of claims 1 to 24 in a mold to obtain a texturized molded article.

34. The process of claim 33, wherein said mold is textured on at least a portion of its internal surface.

35. The process of claim 33 or 34, further comprising carrying out secondary texturing of at least a portion of the molded article's external surface.

36. The process of claim 35, wherein said secondary texturing being carried out after extraction of the molded article from the mold.

37. The process of claim 33, wherein said texturing is carried out in two stages: (i) primary texturing concomitantly with said molding (in-mold texturing), and (ii) secondary texturing after extraction of the molded article from the mold.

38. The process of any one of claims 35 to 37, wherein said secondary texturing is carried out by at least one method selected from the group consisting of laser texturing, chemical etching, and sand blasting.

39. The process of any one of claims 33 to 38, wherein said in-mold texturing is obtained by texturing the mold, prior to molding, by at least one method selected from the group consisting of laser texturing, chemical etching, and sand blasting.

40. The process of any one of claims 33 to 39, comprises preparing said composition prior to molding.

41. The process of claim 40, wherein preparation of said composition comprises mixing said at least one pigment and/or mineral-based additive into the polymeric material under conditions permitting non-homogenous distribution of the pigment and/or mineral-based additive in the mixture.

42. The process of claim 40, preparation of said composition comprises mixing said at least one pigment and/or mineral-based additive into the polymeric material under conditions permitting forming pigment and/or mineral based additive agglomerates in the composition.

43. The process of any one of claims 33 to 42, wherein said molding is injection molding.

44. A molded article being textured over at least a portion of its external surface manufactured by the process of any one of claims 33 to 42.

45. The molded article of claim 44, wherein the texture on said portion of the article's external surface comprises randomly-distributed surface defects.

46. The molded article of claim 45, wherein said randomly-distributed surface defects comprise one or more of air bubbles, cracks, micro-cracks, dents, chips, scratches, cloudiness, spots, stains, graining, edge defects, parting lines, and streak-marks.

47. The molded article of any one of claims 44 to 46, wherein said article having a texture mimicking a composite naturally-based material.

48. The molded article of any one of claims 44 to 47, wherein said article having a texture and/or visual appearance of a composite naturally-based material selected from stone, earth-ware, clay, ceramics, marble, plaster, concrete, wood, and wood-chip.

49. The molded article of any one of claims 44 to 48, comprising an overlaid pattern in addition to randomly-distributed surface defects.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0071] In order to better understand the subject matter that is disclosed herein and to exemplify how it may be carried out in practice, embodiments will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

[0072] FIGS. 1A-1B show articles manufactured from compositions and by methods of the present disclosure.

[0073] FIG. 2 shows an injection-molded article manufactured from traditional injection-molded formulations.

EXAMPLES

[0074] Randomly-textured articles that mimic the appearance and texture of concrete were produced from various compositions of this disclosure, as detailed in Table 1. The compositions were injection molded into texturized molds, thus obtaining in-mold texturing. Secondary texturing after extraction from the mold were carried out for some of the articles to impart them with further texturizing artifacts.

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 exemplary compositions for mimicking concrete texture and appearance Exemplary Exemplary composition 1 composition 2 Polypropylene.sup.a 25-30 wt % 5-10 wt % Low-MFI polypropylene.sup.b 25-35 wt % 50-70 wt % Talc 25-35 wt % 25-35 wt % Blowing agent <1 wt % <1 wt % Pigments (total) <2 wt % <2 wt % Glass fibers 7-12 wt % — .sup.aMFI = >50 g/10 min .sup.bMFI = <3 g/10 min

[0075] All compositions provided for articles mimicking the tactile feeling and texture as well as the visual appearance of concrete, as shown in FIGS. 1A-1B, such that visually and texturally these articles are almost indistinguishable from similar articles made of concrete. In addition, as seen from FIGS. 1A-1B, various realistic textures and visual effects may be obtained by utilizing the compositions and methods of this disclosure. For example, FIG. 1A shows a box, injection-molded from the compositions of the present disclosure, having a relatively rough surface texture and significantly apparent cloudiness; while in FIG. 1B a similar box that was injection-molded with another composition of the present disclosure shows a more refined random texture and visual features, mimicking a fine-textured concrete article.

[0076] In comparison, FIG. 2 shows an article, injection-molded from traditional compositions. As seen, almost no texturing is visible, and the surface of the article is vary uniform in color, without any apparent texturization or desired visual features, rendering the article with a synthetic look and feel.