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Sealing and Guiding Elements
for Compressors and Condensers
Details

The use of filled PTFE for piston sealing and guiding elements, as one of the successful applications for this compound, goes back all the way to the mid-1950s. Particularly with regard to process gases, the use of filled PTFE clearly enhanced dry-running operations as well adapting performance, service life, efficiency and costs to the continually increasing demands of the market. During the course of this, initially rapid, development, wipers and rod packings quickly joined the range of filled PTFE products. Soon, the need for sealing and guiding elements made of hard carbon, with their numerous disadvantages, ceased to exist.

The 1970s and 80s saw a major decline in the demand for large process gas compressors. Instead, there was an increased interest in production machines generating oil-free compressed air. Higher environmental awareness, stricter government controls, and continual pressure to reduce costs created a completely novel set of demands. Elring played a major role in the overall development and application of PTFE special compounds from the very beginning. In-house test rigs, extensive compound research and development activities, combined with decades of experience have profoundly shaped Elring’s product portfolio.

PTFE, a fluorocarbon compound (polytetrafluorehtylene), is ideally suited as a basic compound for compressor sealing and guiding elements:

PTFE offers an extremely low friction coefficient when combined with metals – even without lubrication.
PTFE is highly anti-adhesive, without any stick-slip effect.
PTFE is highly extensible, ensuring easy assembly of sealing and guide rings on one-part pistons.
PTFE, when subjected to moderate loads, features a range of applications from –200 °C to 260°C, which is exceptionally high for plastic compounds.
PTFE is chemically resistant against virtually any solid, liquid or gaseous media.
PTFE is resistant to aging, non-combustible and physiologically neutral within the stated temperature range.


Innovations in plastics – for over 40 years we have been one of the technology leaders for seals and engineering design elements. For our customers around the world we develop and produce solutions that stand the test of practical application: from PTFE and PTFE-compounds, thermoset and other high-performance plastics as well as PTFE-composite components including plastics or metals. As single, custom solutions, up to dimensions of 3,000 mm, or from an extensive portfolio of standard series. Our products can be found in virtually any industry as well as in medical technology. Our merger with Venus and the integration of the Venus product portfolio now puts us in a position to offer you PTFE processing capabilities that rank among the most extensive in the world. Benefit from our expanded capacities to deliver complete solutions from the semi-finished product through to the functional solution custom-tailored to your needs. Your previous points of contact are ready to serve you with additional options and greater flexibility. Together, we’ll make the best of plastics for you. PTFE plays a key role in this – a compound with unique properties for engineering applications, even under extreme conditions.