At its US-based headquarters in Winona, Minnesota, long fibre compounder PlastiComp (www.plasticomp.com) has commissioned another pultrusion line for long carbon fibre (LCF) materials. It is the second facility for these products since the company began to gain experience with its own "Complet" LCF grades in 2014 along with the installation of its pilot line. “With this new plant, we will triple our capacity for LCF compounds,” announced COO Eric Wollan without giving absolute figures. Aside from the new lines, PlastiComp is already operating four extrusion facilities for long glass fibre (LGF) compounds.

The company is processing LCF with 12k to 50k tows in continuous production. The fibre content is between 15% and 50% by weight. PlastiComp uses a broad range of materials from polypropylene to PEEK. The compounder can also manufacture hybrids with LCF and LGF fibres to close the characteristics and price gaps between glass and carbon monofibre-reinforced grades.

The compound market has been growing continuously, not only for high-performance materials, explained Wollan. The use of carbon fibre in aircraft construction has opened the doors to other industries instead. For several years now, PlastiComp has been collaborating with DSM (Sittard / The Netherlands; www.dsm.com) in the polyamide sector and with specialities compounder Xenia (Mussolente / Italy; www.xeniamaterials.com). In Europe, the company is represented by its subsidiary PlastiComp Europe (Steenbergen / The Netherlands; www.plasticomp.de).