In March 2007 the company announced its plans to implement unique advanced catalyst technology in one of its existing plants in Geleen (The Netherlands) to support the development and commercialization of a new range of Keltan® EPDM products. These new products contain relatively large amounts of 2-vinyl-5- norbornene (VNB) as the diene third monomer.
“Keltan products with a high content of VNB can be advantageously applied in peroxide cure applications”, Herman Dikland, Keltan ACE Business Manager, explained. “Typically 30 up to 70% of cross-linking peroxide can be reduced from compound formulations, depending on the type of EPDM to be replaced. Apart from the obvious savings on the cross-linking peroxide, low peroxide dosages are beneficial to prevent blooming of peroxide decomposition products and reduce volatile emissions thereby positively affecting odor, taste, fogging and shrinkage characteristics. Moreover, the high-temperature performance characteristics of products based on VNB-EPDM are excellent, resulting from a low degree of residual unsaturation in the final article”. 
Many more advantages with high VNB products have been identified. One example is the improved Mooney scorch behaviour offering enhanced processing safety of peroxide compounds based on VNB-EPDM. Another example is the unique processing features that offer a combination of high zero shear viscosities with high shear thinning. This combination allows smooth extrusions and injections, without sacrificing dimensional stability of processed parts.
Christian Widdershoven, Vice President Marketing & Sales adds: “Keltan ACE TM provides us with the largest innovation since the introduction of EPDM. The project is now moving to the next phase after only two years of preparations”.

The company will start an internal evaluation of its first Keltan ACETM production run and based on the results will start the sampling of its first high-VNB product in the course of 2009.

DSM ELASTOMERS CELEBRATES 40 YEARS KELTAN