Material Options for Plastic Manifolds

The material or resin can mean the difference between products that last and those that don't. Engineers have labeled material choice as one of the important design decisions when crafting and creating new products. After choosing either a single-layer manifold, multilayer, or simply 3D printing a prototype, material stands as integral to product success.

Each type of manifold has resins and materials that suit better than others. For single layer plastic manifolds, many more material options exist for selection because of the plastic materials unique qualities and natures. We usually limit bonded plastic manifold options to materials that can take laminating.

A few characteristics to consider regarding material choice:

Please note that for orders with a great quantity, material manufacturer's stock may not be sufficient, and that manufacturer may need extra time to fill an order. This also holds true for those runs that plan to use less common materials and/or blends.

However, plastic manufacturers can source for custom manufacturing runs to test any or all of the following factors:

• COLOR OPTIONS

Plastics can be tinted any PANTONE® color.

• FILLER OPTIONS

Fillers (like glass or carbon fiber) can be added to plastics to make the plastic more robust.

• SOME MATERIAL IN RESIN ONLY

Materials are commonly available in resin only and not stocked.

• CERTIFICATIONS

A product requires special certification like those from the FDA or USP Class VI to ensure quality.

• IMPROVE ASSEMBLY

Custom runs serve to improve manufacturability of difficult part configurations.

MORE ABOUT MATERIAL CHOICES FOR SINGLE-LAYER MANIFOLDS

Not all materials have the exact same qualities or capabilities. Some materials exist that we would recommend best used in a single-layer manifold design over bonded, multilayer manifolds and vice versa.

Below, we have listed two different categories of materials based on their clarity (or potential therein) for single-layer manifolds. They tend to have the best qualities and can take the manufacturing process without incident.

MORE ABOUT MATERIAL CHOICES FOR MULTILAYER MANIFOLDS

Some resins have a higher capacity for bonding to create multilayer manifolds. The aforementioned resins work great for other applications that don't need a complex fluidic system. However, these ones listed below mark themselves as best suited for the process.

While most manufacturers can create macro-sized plastic manifolds, there exists some restrictions when it comes to manifold size concerning their max and mins. Single-layer manifolds (SLMs) can amount to larger manifolds but lack some key features that might otherwise influence a designer's decision.

We have those detailed below.

Material vendors sell plastic sheet or plate in fractional sizes. This can lead an engineer to design to those sizes for layer thicknesses. Typically, most manufacturers like us will use the next "size up" material to produce a given thickness. With us, we need 0.125” to 0.2” extra. This is for several reasons.

Successful bonding requires the blank to be precise in both dimensional thickness and flatness.

Stock materials can vary significantly in thickness across a sheet. For example, Acrylic sheet thickness tolerances are a broad +/- 10% while extremely clear and smooth in stock form but wavy. The diffusion bonding process does not allow stock thickness bonding. Material removal must occur for acrylic.

The machine datum is almost always from the bottom of the part, making Z depths measured from the top of the part vary due to material thickness changes.

Many stock materials have very rough surfaces and/or are warped from the extrusion process. They arrive 0 to +.030” oversized.

Vendors will sell nominal imperial sizes that turn out to have actual metric measurements and tend to start as undersized (e.g. 1” nominal is actually .944”).

Choosing an economically efficient material thickness is not an exact science as exceptions exist. Like in the above list, purposely oversized material in nominal sheet sizes are available in metric only and varying thickness tolerances. We advise consulting with the specialized plastics manufacturer if any questions should arise in relation to your product.

We work with over 30+ varieties of plastic resins and materials. That combined with our decades of experience have granted us the knowledge on which plastics are best suited for bonded manifolds. We have listed some of those below.

Need to know more? Visit our article about the best plastics for bonded manifolds.

ULTEMⓇ (PEI) and COC/COP (COC = cyclic olefin copolymer, COP = cyclic olefin polymer, both are chemically similar) are materials commonly used in applications with harsh chemicals in life sciences. While they share similar qualities, like low outgassing, they differ on several different fronts. Below are some comparisons between the two.

These are very broad categories and as such are meant as a general guide to start the process of finding a solution. True chemical resistance will depend on the specific chemical as well as the concentration and temperature used.

Please note that we have limitations in our understanding of the chemical capabilities of the materials listed below. However, we are more than willing to offer suggestions and provide resources to assist you in the design process. If needed, we can also offer material samples for lifetime or chemical testing in relation to your application.

A WORD ABOUT COST DIFFERENCES

ULTEMⓇ costs about twice as much as COC/COP does. However, material costs are never the sole factor when it comes to a manifold construction's total cost. These total costs also depend on the other matters that may not have a significant role in the end total.