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Impact Modifiers
Tougher Plastics. Stronger Impact.
Our global product range offers tailored options to address your every need.
Dow’s impact modifiers are produced in North America, Europe, and Asia and include both acrylic and MBS (methacrylate-butadiene-styrene) chemistries. Their core-shell structure and molecular weight facilitate compatibility and rheology during processing. This translates to improved toughness, impact strength, durability, and surface finish of the final material.
Contact our global technical team for consultation on options to address your impact modification challenges.
Long-term weatherability
PARALOID™ Acrylic Impact Modifiers are designed to enhance weatherability, UV resistance, and long-term durability in outdoor applications. Their core-shell structure offers excellent resistance to discoloration, chalking, and brittleness caused by prolonged exposure to sunlight and harsh environments. These modifiers are a good choice for exterior PVC profiles, siding, and decking, where retention of mechanical properties and appearance over time is critical.
Why choose Acrylic Impact Modifier?
Offers strong resistance to UV light and outdoor weather, protecting plastics from sunlight-induced discoloration, chalking, and embrittlement.
Maintains impact strength and toughness over time, helping ensure that outdoor parts remain ductile and crack-resistant, even after years of service in harsh environments.
Integrates easily into PVC and other matrices due to its compatible core–shell makeup, facilitating fusion and smooth processing without sacrificing clarity or surface finish in the final product.
Low temperature impact performance
MBS (methacrylate-butadiene-styrene) impact modifiers are known for their exceptional low-temperature impact performance and high efficiency. They are especially effective in applications that demand high impact performance, and certain grades are enhanced to toughen plastics without sacrificing transparency. MBS modifiers are a good choice for indoor applications where weatherability is not a concern, but impact strength and processing ease are essential.
Why choose MBS Impact Modifier?
Dramatically boosts impact strength even at low loadings, allowing formulators to achieve required toughness in plastics cost-effectively.
Offers exceptional ductility in cold conditions, preventing brittle failure of products down to sub-zero temperatures.
Certain MBS grades are formulated for enhanced clarity in rigid plastics, offering toughness without clouding the material.
Boosting Circularity in PCR Polycarbonate with PARALOID™ EXL-2691J Impact Modifier
See how PARALOID™ EXL-2691J Impact Modifier enhances toughness, hydrolytic resistance, and consistency in recycled PC, supporting circularity without compromising performance
Part 1: The Challenge with PCR Polycarbonate.
Part 2: How PARALOID™ EXL-2691J Impact Modifier Closes the Gap
Key impact modifier applications
Consumer goods and appliances
Impact modifiers enhance toughness in rigid plastics used for consumer products and appliances. They improve durability and low-temperature performance, extending the lifespan of appliance housings and casings.
Electronics
Impact modifiers added to polycarbonate (PC) or PC blends in laptop and phone enclosures help ensure that these devices can withstand accidental drops and impacts without cracking.
Automotive
Automotive components like bumpers, trim, interior panels, EV batteries and chargers use impact modifiers for durability and safety. Acrylic modifiers help ensure parts don't become brittle after UV exposure, while MBS improves toughness at low temperatures.
3D printing
Impact modifiers improve toughness in 3D-printed plastics like Polylactic Acid (PLA), reducing brittleness and helping enable stronger, more durable parts for functional applications without sacrificing printability.
FAQs
Impact modifiers introduce tiny rubbery domains into a brittle plastic matrix that act as energy absorbers during an impact. These core–shell particles, with a soft rubber core and hard outer shell, cause the surrounding matrix to deform instead of crack. They initiate local yielding mechanisms, such as crazing and shear-yielding, blunting the growth of cracks. This converts a brittle fracture into a ductile failure or prevents failure altogether, significantly enhancing the material's impact strength.
To select the right impact modifier, start by considering your application’s needs such as toughness, clarity, weatherability, or regulatory compliance. Think about where and how the product will be used, what performance standards it must address, and any processing constraints. Dow offers a range of solutions tailored to different resins and end-use conditions, including options that combine impact strength with ease of processing. Try our guided product selector tool Impact Modifiers Guided Product Selector | Dow Inc. to find the right impact modifier for your application or speak with our technical specialists to refine your selection.
Choose acrylic impact modifiers for outdoor applications where long-term durability, exceptional weatherability, and UV resistance are key, for example in siding, decking, window profiles, and pipes. For indoor uses needing low-temperature impact strength or clarity, like appliance and auto parts or clear packaging, MBS modifiers are often preferred. When UV exposure isn’t a concern, MBS typically offers greater efficiency. In some cases, a blend of both can balance durability and performance.
Yes. Impact modifiers enhance the durability and lifespan of plastic products, reducing breakage and extending use, which is key to sustainable material design. They also support design for recyclability by maintaining performance in post-consumer recycled (PCR) resins and enabling reuse in rigid PVC and engineering plastics. Dow offers impact modifiers that can restore the toughness of PCR resins to near-virgin levels, allowing manufacturers to incorporate a higher percentage of recycled content without sacrificing performance.
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