Fashion wave brings BiM back.(News)(bismaleimide)(Brief Article)

"Compounding has fashion waves and every few years returns to certain approaches," commented Dr Wolfgang Steinhoff of DuPont Dow Elastomers in Geneva, describing a renaissance in the use of bismaleimide (BiM). This is a material which has been around for a while, he said, but is currently in vogue again, and is a fast growing material, he said. Chemists have now "found a multitude of applications for BiM," and a wide range of elastomers can benefit from one or more of its enhancements, Steinhoff commented.

BiM is used, for example, as a curative for CSM (chlorosulphonat