The use of carbon fibres in thermoplastic compounds is nothing new. Carbon-fibre reinforced materials have been indispensable in the fields of automotive engineering, aviation and medical technology as well as in the food and beverages industry for many years. This is due in part to their good mechanical properties, but also to the useful advantage that they can be equipped with antistatic or electrically conductive characteristics.
Until now, however, these materials have had one drawback. Henry Ford is reported to have said that any customer could have a Ford painted any colour as long as it was black. The same used to be true of carbon-fibre-reinforced compounds.
LUVOCOM® engineers have now succeeded in bringing colour to carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics (see photo). The use of these coloured materials makes it possible, for example, to distinguish components that are very similar but made of different base polymers. Or to distinguish between left and right parts in a production process.