Transparency of polyester resins

A fine example of this is glass. Centuries ago glass used to be brown or greenish but over time has been improved into the highly transparent glass fibers used in modern telecommunication equipment.

Similarly, after plastics had been invented the demand increased for them to be light colored or even glass-clear.

Since polyester resins are available in clear or transparent grades, they are used for such applications as:

• shockproof industrial glazing
• corrugated sheets for transparent walls
• clear coatings on pianos, furniture and wooden floors
• clear gelcoats for fiber reinforced plastics
• colored coatings or colored gel coats for decorative surfaces

AEROSIL^® product adds valuable properties to such resins when applied in small concentrations of only a few percent. The improvements observed are:

• controlled viscosity
• improved adhesion
• enhanced hardness
• controlled gloss

AEROSIL^® fumed silica does all of this without significantly impairing transparency.

Due to its fine particle size, AEROSIL^® 200 leaves clear resins more transparent than some other particulate additives do.