K-Resin® SBC resin, a styrene-butadiene copolymers (SBC) containing high styrene content (&gt;50% by wt), is produced by anionic solution polymerization technique. In contrast to low styrene content (&lt;50% by wt) styrene-butadiene block copolymers used as thermoplastic elastomers (S-TPE), K-Resin® SBC resin grades are transparent thermoplastic with high impact strength in general and various rigidity, which are determined by morphologies beside styrene contents. The quest to develop flexible medical tubing using styrenic block copolymers can be trace back to 1970s. The major challenge is to balance the properties of kink resistance and flexibility and stickiness. With expanded understanding in styrenic polymer morphology and their structure-property relationship, a new K-Resin® SBC grade has been developed recently. This new resin grade can be extruded into flexible medical tubing and is suitable for other applications. The flexible tubing possesses good kink resistance, comparable to traditional plasticized PVC tubing, but contains no plasticizer. In addition, the tubing made with K-Resin® SBC resins has good solvent bondability and is suitable for ethylene oxide, E-beam and gamma sterilization.

Flexible tubing development with K-Resin® SBC resins

251st National Meeting (2016)

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