What Is PTFE?

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a generic name for Teflon®. In general, this is a highly fluorinated material with a fairly wide range of molecular weights, up into the hundreds of thousands. Lubricants based on PTFE offer an extremely low static coefficient of friction, which is at the heart of their effectiveness as lubricants. PTFE also is extremely stable and nonflammable; clean, dry, non-oily and non-staining. The material is biologically inert and does not support biological growth (that is, it is non-pyrogenic).

PTFE usually is sold and packaged in one of three ways: as a dry powder, as pellets, or as a dispersion in a carrying agent. To improve lubricity, many companies take PTFE solids (the powders or the pellets) and grind them into micropowders. These particles will have an irregular shape and be of an inconsistent size. Although inexpensive, these are generally inferior as dry lubricants.

The carrying agents used on PTFE micropowders usually are based on alcohol, water or fluorinated solvents. Water-based and alcohol-based carrying agents are less expensive to buy, so they are often given close scrutiny during the testing and specification process. But these categories of products require expensive and maintenance-intensive machinery to apply the lubricant safely and cost-effectively. Space is also a consideration: water-based systems always require a larger footprint than solvent-based carrying agents. Fluorinated carrying agents out-perform water-based and alcohol-based carrying agents, and while the purchase price is higher the capital costs are lower, as are the daily operational costs.

Micro Care designed it's family of thin-film lubricants based on two technologies, both from DuPont. First, Micro Care uses a unique form of PTFE which is manufactured at the lowest molecular weights — typically one-tenth of the cheaper grades of PTFE used by other manufacturers. Micro Care's materials are sufficiently small they never need further grinding or processing. In fact, a significant proportion of these materials are so small they are able to dissolve into the carrying solvent.

In addition, Micro Care prefers to use fluorinated solvents as the carrying agents. The molecular weight of the PTFE materials are nearly identical to the molecular weight of fluorinated solvents. That makes it easy for these fine, light and ultra-pure materials to stay in suspension and form the smoothest, most even microdispersions. When dried, they leave a thin, continuous film of PTFE on the substrate.

For these reasons, Micro Care microdispersions are, overall, superior lubricants.

• Here is some background information about the advantages of Micro Care's thin film lubricants.
• Methods for applying the lubricants and heat-treating them for great durability are included here.
• Here is a general list of Micro Care dry film lubricants.
• One of the lubricants, the VDX Spray, is the only one available in an aerosol package.

• Here is a note about Micro Care package sizes and packaging options.