Nickel coated industrial graphite in professional silicone is the most cost effective conductive Elastomer giving excellent industrial shielding characteristics even though the material is much more resistive than precious metal plated particle Elastomers. This excellent performance can be accredited to the fact that the nickel graphite particles are irregular in shape and have sharp edges, when the gasket is put under pressure being compressed between two surfaces the particles dig into the surface giving very low contact resistance, graphite is also a good microwave absorber thereby enhancing the shielding performance. Nickel graphite in silicone costs approximately 60% less than silver plated aluminium in silicone and 70% less than silver plated copper in silicone. Nickel graphite also offers excellent galvanic corrosion resistance over silver plated particles when in contact with aluminium flanges.
Kemtron’s process capability is extrusion, moulding and conductive vulcanised jointing. Many extrusion industrial profiles are available including cords, tubes, hollow D, solid D, etc, custom profiles are available. Extrusions are supplied in continuous lengths, cut to length or made into large or small diameter O professional rings which are produced by joining extruded profiles with the same conductive compound as the base material, the join is heat vulcanised ensuring a strong conductive joint. Mouldings include sheet stock, O rings, custom shapes and gaskets. Sheets can be die cut to customers design and a conductive PSA can be applied to aid assembly.
Kemtron also deposit liquid conductive silicones directly to customers hardware as a form in place gasket, this process can deposit very small (0.4 high X 0.5 wide) gaskets.