Are you using elastomeric transfer hose when hose of Teflon® might serve you better?

Hose of Teflon®
No material comes close to Teflon® in physical, chemical and a variety of other properties. As a hose product the drawback to the product was simply: in smooth-tube designs most hoses are too stiff. Applications with purity, clean-ability concerns want a smooth verifiable clean surface. Smooth tube Teflon® designs frequently would kink or just be to stiff to function as a user-friendly hose. Hose of Teflon® were designed with convoluted interior shapes and clearly met flexibility needs. In many cases the cloud of true clean-ability prevented their application considerations.

Why silicone hose?
The market for silicone hose designs has grown dramatically. This is a fairly young phenomenon, most coming in the last 10 years. Why silicone? Foremost, it has a relatively acceptable compatibility with a high number of materials. Silicone also stands up to extremes…extremes that may not be there in actual application use, rather in the cleaning/sterilizing preparation needs of the application.
Silicone hose use has grown dramatically because smooth-tube designs can be made flexible and silicone offered a temperature range capability similar to that of Teflon®.

So what has changed?
First, there have been dramatic resin improvements developed by Dupont. PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) quality levels are dramatically improved. Molecular binding is better, flexing capability, modulus of elasticity and other features are significantly improved. Extrusion processes have improved. Most of all: quality measures can now be taken at any stage of production dramatically controlling every detail of manufacturing. Reinforcement materials that give pressure capability to the tube have also improved.

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