Plastic Injection Molding Materials

When it comes to plastic injection molding, these are some common plastic materials used:

• Crystalline Plastics 
• Amorphous Plastics
• Imidized Plastics
• Polyethylene (PE)
• Polypropylene (PP)
• Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)
• Polyoxymethylene (POM)
• Polystyrene (PS)

However, the list doesn’t end here. There are a variety of materials available. That’s why choosing the right plastic material for your custom injection molding project is an important decision. Plastic materials look and behave differently based on the characteristics of their chemical makeup. Based on the part’s intended application and functionality, important material properties must be considered, such as durability, flexibility, performance, texture, density and color.

It is also essential to look at each material’s shrinkage and mold flow rate. Understanding these criteria can mitigate undesirable defects such as warpage, sink marks and color streaks, which can affect the part’s dimensions, tolerances and surface finish.

The injection molding material’s shrink rate needs to be considered. If the parts have an initial production run out of one plastic material, changing material for future production runs may affect the part’s dimensions, because a different material may have a different shrink rate.

ICOMold’s plastic material list offers a wide variety of materials for injection molding. Additionally, if you need a material that’s not listed, contact our sales engineers and we will work with you to obtain your specific plastic resin material.

If you would like to physically compare plastic materials by hand, we recommend purchasing a plastic sample kit which features 20 common plastic materials for you to compare their characteristics and properties.