Polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) is a semi-crystalline

thermoplastic A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling. Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains associat ...

in the

polyaryletherketone Polyaryletherketone (PAEK) is a family of semi-crystalline thermoplastics with high-temperature stability and high mechanical strength whose molecular backbone contains alternately ketone (R-CO-R) and ether groups (R-O-R). The linking group R be ...

(PAEK) family of polymers. It possesses high heat, chemical, and mechanical load resistance. PEKK has a

glass transition temperature The glass–liquid transition, or glass transition, is the gradual and reversible transition in amorphous materials (or in amorphous regions within semicrystalline materials) from a hard and relatively brittle "glassy" state into a viscous or rub ...

(Tg) of 162 °C. Polyetherketoneketone HDD part

Applications

Hexcel Corporation (Formerly Oxford Performance Materials) manufactures PEKK-based parts for

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

for use in its Starliner space taxis, using

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

-based additive manufacturing. It has wide dental and medical applications. The parts are claimed to be as strong as

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It h ...

while being 40 percent of the weight. In addition, PEKK manufactured components have shown fire and radiation resistant properties.

References

Organic polymers Polyethers Thermoplastics {{polymer-stub