Gabriel-Chemie to launch anti-counterfeit tech for plastics

Plastic additive specialist Gabriel-Chemie says it will officially launch a new range of anti-counterfeit masterbatches next month.

The Maxithen ProTec4 masterbatches are indert, inorganic and temperature-resistent pigments that can be added to plastic components during the manufacturing process to provide a "unique fingerprint that can be quickly, easily and accurately detected using either small handheld device or an inline detector in a production environment", says the company.

The pigments - detectable to predefined wavelengths - can be added to plastics in a variety of combinations to provide a greater or lesser degree of complexity.

Use of the proprietary additives can create products with a fingerprint unique to a company -potentially down to batch level - that provides protection from forgery and protects manufacturers from product liability claims when counterfeit parts are involved in product failures, according to Gabriel-Chemie.

The technology can also be used in quality control, for example to confirm the addition of performance additives such as ultraviolet stabilisers or fire retardants, it adds.

"Counterfeit products are appearing with alarming frequency and it can be increasingly difficult to distinguish the genuine from the fake," says Philip Watkins, managing director of Gabriel-Chemie UK, which will be demonstrating the technology at the Plastics Design and Moulding 2013 (PDM) exhibition in Telford, UK, on June 18-19.


Masterbatch image courtesy of Shutterstock