Acetal (POM) Engineering Property Data

Acetal, also known as polyacetal, polyoxymethylene (POM), or polyformaldehyde, is a high performance engineering polymer.  Because of its high strength, modulus, and resistance to impact and fatigue, it is used as a weight-saving metal replacement.  Acetal is subject to degradation in acid and base solutions and is not readily available in a flame-retardant grade.  Acetal, first developed in the late 1950s, is available as a homopolymer (such as DuPont Delrin�) or copolymer (such as Ticona's Celcon�).

MatWeb has product data sheets on over 800 different grades of copolymer and homopolymer acetal.  This page will help you to navigate through MatWeb to find the information that you need.

• If you would like to view a list of all of the acetal entries in MatWeb, then the MatWeb Material Type Search is a good place to start.  You can select 'Acetal' from the alphabetical listing under 'Thermoplastic Polymers' and you will be presented with a list of descriptive names grouped by manufacturer.

  You may also select from the drop-down lists of Acetal Manufacturers/Compounders or Acetal Trade Names available from MatWeb.

• If you are looking for an acetal product with certain performance criteria, then MatWeb's Property Search is the place to start.  You can select 'Acetal' from the list of category choices along with the appropriate property choices.  For example, if you have an application that demands an impact-modified acetal, you can enter a minimum notched Izod impact strength of 2.0 J/cm OR a minimum notched Charpy impact strength of 2.0 J/cm� as your search criteria.  This will return only about 50 grades out of over 800 in MatWeb.

  This same strategy can be used to find fiber-reinforced Acetal plastics.  You can again select 'Acetal' from the category box and specify a minimum flexural modulus of 7.0 GPa, for example.  This search returns about 80 acetal grades; generally only grades with at least 20% glass or carbon fiber reinforcement are stiff enough to meet this flexural modulus requirement.  You can go one step further and eliminate the glass fiber reinforced grades by stipulating a maximum density of 1.5 g/cc.  Now about 20 carbon fiber reinforced Acetal grades are returned - you can then review each of the complete property information datasheets, including properties such as tensile strength or elongation.

  Users who choose to register with MatWeb can take advantage of even more powerful search tools in the Advanced Search page. This allows users to create complex searches from both text and property criteria.

• Product Names from Acetal Manufacturers and Compounders whose Products are included in MatWeb
  If you want data about a specific acetal product, you can enter its trade name, manufacturer, or specific grade (watch spacing and punctuation), in the Search box at the top of any MatWeb page (see the example below):