Excel Fibre Technology has appointed its first UK distributor of its engineered industrial fibre products. The agreement covers the supply of Excel fibre products for the following industrial applications: tile adhesives, paints and surface coatings, refractories, renders and plasters, brake linings and rubber compounding. Excel will be working with its partner, which manufacturers and distributes chemicals and associated products throughout Europe and the Ear East, to deliver cost effective solutions for a variety of industrial customer needs.
Excel will continue to supply directly its industry-leading, Warmcel high performance insulation products for the timber frame construction industry and fibre products for other industrial applications.
Excel’s industrial fibre products perform one or more of four functions within an industrial product or process: acting as a filler or bulking agent; providing a matrix of fibre that holds a soft mixture together until it sets or is cured; acting as a water carrier to assist a process operation or improve product efficacy; working as a viscosity modifier for materials such as bitumen, epoxy resins and cement.
Excels industrial fibre products are cellulose based, being manufactured from 100% recycled newspaper. This means they have very low embodied energy and excellent sustainability credentials. A further benefit of Excel fibres is that they remain inert throughout their lifetime, so that once their primary function has been completed they can still remain harmlessly within a manufactured component or product without posing any threat to the product’s long-term performance or life expectancy.
Using advanced processing techniques, Excel is able to re-engineer the cellulose fibre; changing its structure so that it possesses the required performance criteria for its end application. Fibres can be created that vary from an almost powder-like appearance, for use in paints for example, to longer fibres, with excellent weave characteristics, which are essential in road fibres or in sound insulation products. It is the ability to formulate the fibre in this way that enables Excel to satisfy such diverse industrial needs.
To accentuate any particular aspect of the processed fibre’s performance characteristics, the manufacturing facility is then able to introduce natural, inorganic and non-toxic additives to the fibre mix, which are dispersed evenly throughout the fibre. Typical performance enhancements may include, for example, improved resistance to fire, greater fluidity and dispersal or the ability to absorb water more effectively.
Special grades of fibre can also be produced, by varying the feedstock raw material, to match very specific application criteria, such as a need for very high wet strength.