What is Purging Compound – An Overview

What are the Benefits of a Purging Compound?

A purging compound is a special type of product formulated for cleaning extruders and thermoplastic molding machines. Base resin and several more additives are added in this formulation to clean dies, barrel, and screw. The product is also used for removing color and carbon deposits. Additionally, it is also used towards hot runner mold cleaning.

• Quick changeovers in colors and material
• Less instances of rejection
• Lesser downtime
• Cuts down material wastage

Regrind and virgin do not have enough cleaning power or detergency to clean the extruders or a thermoplastic molding machine. But, purging

compound for extruders are specially formulated for this purpose.

Therefore, it’s worth noting that a recycled resin or virgin is not the same as a purging compound.

• Resin is not capable enough to fully remove carbon/color deposits from the last run.
• What’s worse, recycled resin could actually make contaminants enter the machine (color/carbon contaminants)
• Resin layers, over the period of time can cause carbon contamination inside the barrels.
• Once, contamination has started, it becomes all the more challenging to clean it
• Another benefit of using purging compound for cleaning machines is that it avoids unnecessary overhauling of machines. Manually cleaning a machine and overhauling it can take hours and sometimes even an entire day (in case of larger machines). Besides, using abrasive tools such as metal brushes and similar other cleaning tools can cause the screw to wear quickly.

Uses of purging compounds

The benefit of using purging compounds for extruders and for cleaning machines is that it works faster and offers better results than any other method. It works more efficiently if you compare it with traditional methods. This is especially formulated for cleaning purposes only. That’s why it has superior detergency power which regrind or resins can never offer.

Using this product has become crucial to the thermoplastic processes. Those in plastic processing are always on the lookout for ways to reduce cost and quicken the production. And, purging compounds help in that. As a matter of fact, many makers of machinery even advice their customers to use purging compound for injection molding machine as well as extruders to keep them in good condition for as long as possible.

Take a look at some benefits of using purging compounds:

1. Barrel and screw cleaning – Offers incredibly efficient and thorough results.
2. Removal of color and carbon deposits – Purging compounds are capable of effectively cleaning/removing stubborn deposits that regular resin is simply incapable of.
3. Quick color and material changeover – Helps facilitate quicker changeover than any other traditional methods which typically involve large quantities of regrind and resin.
4. Prevents the need of screw-pulls – No need to manually overhaul the machine which is both time consuming and tiresome job.

One can find multiple brands selling purging compounds. One such brand is SLIDE

Try before you buy

If you are wondering if this product will work on your process, you can request a free sample kit by filling out your information in the online quoting form and select “mold spray sample”.