With over 65 years in the wire and cable business, Teknor Color possesses the expertise to meet your color needs for electrical and electronics applications. At Teknor, we anticipate advances in this industry—especially since wire and cable manufacturers face increasingly tough regulatory demands on color concentrates. Our commitment to innovation ensures that we’re continually improving our concentrates so you can boost productivity and still maintain excellent electrical properties and end product appearance.

Our Color concentrates meet a wide range of electrical and electronic needs. To learn more about each product, click through for details.

Standard Stock Colors

Teknor Color has 12 standard colors that are readily available to ship in any quantity short notice. They are: white, grey, black, red, yellow, brown, light green, green, light blue, blue, pink, and orange.

Custom Colors

Our specialty is to provide custom solutions. We can work with Pantone color number, paper swatches, paint chips, metal plaques, pieces of fabric, or even a rough description of the desired color. Using advanced spectrophotometers our color laboratories help ensure precise color matching and quality assurance. Custom colorants are available for injection molding, blow molding, sheet extrusion, profile extrusion, rotational molding, and calendared film.

Special Effects

Special effect colors can help you differentiate your products in the marketplace. For the electric and electronics industry our current options include:

MetaLustre:

These color concentrates provide a luxurious metallic look, all while eliminating the time and guesswork involved in developing new color packages. They are available in aluminum, blue steel, brass, copper, gold, and pewter. We have multiple formulations designed to deliver an identical hue in packages made from various resins. Formulations are available for PET, PETG, LDPE, LLDPE, HDPE, PP (including clarified and copolymer types), ionomer, crystal PS, HIPS, SAN, ABS, PC, nylon, and TPEs used in "soft-touch" applications.

Fluorescent:

Our line of fluorescent colors consists of six colors (green, yellow, red, pink, orange, and purple). One series is formulated in a PP carrier for use with clarified PP. The other series is formulated for use in natural polyethylene.

Frosted/Translucent:

Frosted or translucent special effects are available in light blue, light green, lime, dark green, yellow, and red concentrates. Due to the heavy metal-free pigments in a polypropylene carrier resin, a frosted effect can be produced uniformly throughout the molded or extruded product enhancing its consumer appeal.

Frosted colors are supplied as nominal 0.125 to 0.0625-inch pellets or beads and can be used with homopolymer or copolymer polypropylene resins at a let down ratio of 50:1.

Super Concentrates®

The Super Concentrate® Series encompasses Color Crystals®, Color Spheres®, and Ultracolor® products, incorporating 200% higher pigment loadings in the same unit volume as standard concentrates. This provides the user with a 30-60% cost savings compared to conventional concentrates without any processing or end-use limitations. Feeder technology improvements now allow processors to use Super Concentrates at low dosage rates with excellent results.

Color Crystals are supplied as 1/16 or 1/32 (15.9 or 7.9 mm) beads and are designed for use in polyolefins.

Color Spheres are available for styrenics and polyolefins, and are supplied only in 1/32-inch form to provide improved incorporation, particularly in large flat surface parts.

Ultracolor can be used in multiple polymers, including PS, ABS, PC, acrylic, PP and HDPE. It is provided in 1/16 or 1/32 (15.9 or 7.9 mm) beads. Other Ultracolor benefits include improved impact strength in HDPE, and solid dispersing in certain engineering resin alloys, such as PC/ABS blends. Its affinity for both polymer matrices allows for superior performance compared to conventional products. The Ultracolor carrier also precludes the need for drying characteristics of typical ABS and PC concentrates.

Bioresin Colors and Concentrates

Developed to meet growing customer demands for use in goods that are biodegradable and/or based on renewable resources, our bioresin functional concentrates can be used alone or in combination with colorants. They are suitable for injection molding, extrusion, and blow molding processes. Teknor Color has three series of color concentrates: PLA-carrier concentrates, biodegradable co-polyester (PBAT) carrier concentrates, and PETek® PET-carrier concentrates.

The three series of colorants differ in terms of their carrier resins, which are either PLA or polyesters compatible with PLA and thus readily blended into it and are available in custom colors.

  • PLA-carrier concentrates are for use in PLA-compatible resins.
  • Biodegradable co-polyester carrier concentrates are normally used for blown film extrusion, and applications that require greater flexibility than is provided by 100% PLA formulations.

  • PETek® PET-carrier concentrates are for non-biodegradable applications where use of a biopolymer base resin such as PLA is desired.

Teknor Color also developed a series of bioresin functional concentrates. They can be used to improve the PLA process and/or performance.

  • Terraloy® PLA Process Improvement Concentrates: A nucleating agent and a melt strength enhancer for color concentrates.

  • Terraloy® PLA Performance Improvement Concentrates: Two impact modifier color concentrates one each for injection molding and extrusion processes.

Pre-Colored Compounds

Pre-colored compounds are polymer systems that are ready for fabrication when received by the molder. Contrary to the term "pre-color," these compounds may be natural in color but contain special additive systems. Pre-color compounds can also consist of just one pigmented resin, or one containing both color and special additives. Custom pre-colored compounds are available based on all types of thermoplastic resins as well as bioresins and are suitable for use in all fabrication processes.

Overview

Within the electrical and electronics industry, color concentrates are forced to meet strict regulatory requirements. As you push the limits of processing, these color requirements become more and more challenging. Our customers simply cannot afford to have the concentrate be the limiting factor in reaching their goals. From connectors to cables to fire protectors, Teknor Color offers the industry expertise and service support to ensure that superior performance goes hand-in-hand with desired appearance.

 

Applications
  • Connectors
  • Electrical Housings
  • Data Cables
  • Power Cables
  • Communication Cables
  • Power Suppliers
  • Cable Ties
  • Fire Protectors
  • Outdoor Utility Housing