Glossmeter | Factors Affecting PP material Gloss

PP material is no stranger to people. It can be said that PP material is involved in the synthesis of most people's daily necessities. Then its important physical property-gloss is also an important parameter of people's attention. This relatively abstract concept can be quantified by using a glossmeter.

1. What is PP material?

PP material is a chemically called polypropylene material, which can be processed into various parts or product decoration and outer packaging. The appearance of PP material is a transparent and colorless solid. It is colorless, odorless and non-toxic in terms of chemical properties, so its applicability is quite wide.
       PP materials have many physical properties and gloss is also an important parameter. Gloss affects its beautification performance to a greater extent. People often use a glossmeter to test to meet the basic requirements of outer packaging. Professionals can also improve the gloss of PP materials by adding some brighteners.

2. Factors affecting the gloss of PP materials

Common PP materials on the market have high transparency and stability, but the gloss is uneven. Generally speaking, the gloss performance of PP materials is inseparable from the external and endogenous factors. We focus on the effects of material temperature, mold cleanliness and processing procedures on the gloss of PP materials.

(1) Material temperature

PP materials need to go through a considerable stage of manual process from raw materials to truly available finished products. As the most primitive materials, we need to strictly control its temperature. If the temperature of the material is too low, the gap between the pores of the material does not meet the standard and the gloss will decrease..

(2) Mold cleanliness

When we make PP material synthetics, molds are inevitable based on the consideration of product shape and use. The cleanliness of the mold is an external factor that affects the product gloss. Some molds that do not meet the standard of cleanliness are likely to cause impurities to be incorporated into the PP material and reduce the overall gloss. Moreover, too turbid raw materials will also affect the final quality of PP finished products, which is not conducive to the maximization of gloss and greatly affects the look and feel.

(3) Processing procedures

Generally speaking, the more complicated the processing procedure, the surface of the product made of PP material will tend to be rough, that is, the gloss value will decrease. PP material has strong airtightness and heat resistance, so people often process it as a plastic film, but its resistance and cracking are also very strong. So it is necessary to pay attention to reducing the grinding process as much as possible during the processing.

3. How to choose and use a glossmeter to measure PP materials?

In the PP material processing industry, the glossmeter is an indispensable measuring instrument. On the one hand, it provides technical staff with basic reference values for brightening and modification; on the other hand, it can also implement self-test before leaving the factory to further ensure the quality of the product.

LS192 glossmeter

The choice of glossmeter mainly depends on the accuracy of the instrument. The best case is that the accuracy is as high as possible and the error is as small as possible. However, there are many types of products in the processing industry and the gloss difference is large, the measurement range is also a factor in consideration.