Seal Materials

“Rubber” is a polymer-based compound cured (sometimes known as “vulcanized”) to form a thermoset elastomer. The base polymer formulations are grouped into over a dozen elastomer “family” types. Within those elastomer families there can be hundreds of sub-formulations developed to optimize seal performance in a variety of operating conditions and performance requirements. Engineered Elastomer family types include all common and exotic elastomer groups such as: FKM Viton^TM flouroelastomer; Hiflour^TM fluoroelastomer; EPDM EPR Ethylene Propylene, Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer; Acrylonitrile-butadiene Nitrile BunaN, NBR; AU Polyurethane; Silicone VMQ, LSR; Fluorosilicone FVMQ; Hydrogenated Nitrile; Perflouroelastomer FFKM Kalrez^TM, Chemraz^TM Parofluor^TM Ultra^TMPerlast^TM ; HNBR; XNBR; Butyl IIR; and Tetrafluoroethylene-Propylene AFLAS^TM. Within each main polymer family there are many hundreds of variants specially compounded with physical properties dialed in for specific use applications such as wear resistance, anti-extrusion, low compression set, low temperature resiliency, friction reduction, explosive decompression resistance (EDR), and so on.

Materials are available in most polymer family types formulated to meet regulatory requirements and industry standards including FDA A-F, USP VI, 3A c.1, WRAS, ADI

• Note re FDA:  Food and Drug Administration 
• US administrative law, Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 
• Regulation: responsibility for demonstration of compliance with CFR 21.177.2600 lies with the rubber manufacturer 
• Paragraph A-D
• List the ingredients and quantitative limits (only suitable for Dry Foods) 
• Paragraph A-E
• Extraction testing in water and n–hexane (suitable in Dry and Aqueous) 
• Paragraph A-F
• Suitable in Dry Aqueous and Fatty