[Enthalpy]

Hello nice people!

I just bought a turning spoon made of polymer, probably loaded with glass choppers.

• It claims to work at +210°C, wow! Hence the question.
• It cost me 1€, of which the material can only be a small fraction.
• It sounds ting ting, not poc poc, but the glass choppers may influence that. It's black.

Two decades ago, I'd have known only ultra-expensive polymers for +210°C: PI, PAI, PEEK...

I see a Vicat B of +205°C for unloaded polyketone homopolymer. Could that be the magic material?

[Corribus]

If you have an FTIR-ATR, you could identify the polymer in about 5 minutes.

[wildfyr]

PEEK seems possible.

[Enthalpy]

A FTIR-ATR?
Err, I have kitchen scales, plus some beetroot juice as a pH indicator. I can weigh the turning spoon if this helps 

PEEK: I checked prices on Alibaba for PEEK granules, optionally reinforced with GF and CF, it's around 80usd/kg. The spoon weighs 32g, so PEEK raw material would have cost 2.5usd, but I bought the item for 1€.

[billnotgatez]

... turning spoon ...

I tried to GOOGLE this term and got how to make spoons on a lathe.
Could you supply me with a link from the place you purchased this item?

Do you have a graduated cylinder that can hold it. Archimedes "Eureka!"

[Corribus]

A FTIR-ATR?
Err, I have kitchen scales, plus some beetroot juice as a pH indicator. I can weigh the turning spoon if this helps 

Ah, sorry, didn't realize this was a DIY effort. Well if you send me one I'll be happy to check it for you lol.

@billnotgatez  I did the same thing because I have no idea what a turning spoon is either.

[wildfyr]

I checked prices on Alibaba for PEEK granules, optionally reinforced with GF and CF, it's around 80usd/kg. The spoon weighs 32g, so PEEK raw material would have cost 2.5usd, but I bought the item for 1€.

This has nothing to do with the cost of bulk PEEK for manufacturing.

[Enthalpy]

This has nothing to do with the cost of bulk PEEK for manufacturing.

I saw prices in ton amounts on Alibaba. This makes only 31 000 spoons. The manufacturer must make more, and they make also other items of the same material.
To sell for 1€ including all other costs and profits, the material must cost well under 0.1€, or 3€/kg. This limits the choice of the polymer. Hence my question, as traditionally the price of a polymer related with its Vicat point.

[Enthalpy]

Do you have a graduated cylinder that can hold it. Archimedes "Eureka!"

Alas! The unknown nature and proportion of reinforcing choppers ruins this attempt.

[Enthalpy]

Could you supply me with a link from the place you purchased this item?

It's nearly that item but not exactly:
https://www.action.com/de-de/p/redstone-pfannenwender/

[billnotgatez]

Thank you

Could you supply me with a link from the place you purchased this item?

It's nearly that item but not exactly:
https://www.action.com/de-de/p/redstone-pfannenwender/

[Corribus]

Lol, in the US we usually call this a spatula. The nonstick ones, like the one you linked to, are usually made of some kind of silicone. Well, at least that's how they're advertised. Sometimes they are silicone-coated nylon.

E.g., Here

[Enthalpy]

I don't have met all sorts of silicone, but the material doesn't sound nor feel like silicone. It's hard, rather like Pom.

[Corribus]

That may be because it has nylon or other core coated with a thin layer of silicone. The nylon provides the stiff structure, the silicone coating provides the temperature performance. Just conjecture, but looking around it does seem like a lot of them are coated materials. Hard to know without cutting into it.

[wildfyr]

Again, the price on Alibaba has little to do with the commodity price of a resin company selling to a manufacturing company. Its just a search engine optimization method.

I have found a supplier offering X on Alibaba, reached out to them or found another supplier, and found the price to be Y, an order of magnitude different.

Source: I work in commodity resins field.