• Tarkett website
• Gislaved Folie AB website
• Bolon AB website
• Pearls in XYMARA.com Materials channel - use in plastic applications

Application examples: PVC flooring and PVC carpeting

Interior design is a global, fast-developing business.  Every year sees new ideas in color and surface texture, creating new styles and moods for living and working space.  But aesthetics is only half the story; the materials we live with not only have to look good but also perform well – and nowhere is this more important than underfoot, on the floor.

Floor coverings have to put up with a lot:  the abrasion of constant foot traffic, the grit, dirt or salt brought in from outdoors on countless shoes, the many staining or corrosive substances that might be spilled on them and the variety of aggressive cleaning materials and techniques.  And at the same time, floor coverings have to look attractive, be easy to install and not cost too much.  The traditional materials – woolen carpets, stone tiles, wood – all have their drawbacks.  Plastics, particularly polyvinylchloride (PVC), perform excellently, install easily and are relatively inexpensive.  The challenge for manufacturers has been to make PVC as pleasing to the eye as natural materials.

Woven PVC carpet

Tarkett PVC flooring

Tarkett, the international flooring manufacturer, makes 18 million square meters of PVC flooring every year – enough to cover downtown New York completely.  Its styles range from the naturalistic to the futuristic, from perfectly grained wood to convincing metallic shades.  Tarkett’s secret for creating plastic flooring without a “plastic” look is light management:  giving the PVC reflective properties at depths below the surface, creating the rich, varied appearance of natural materials.  This effect is achievable thanks to Ciba^® XYMARA™ pigments, mica-based pearlescent and metallic shades that provide the subtle variation in reflection that one sees in real stone or metal.

Adding XYMARA™ pigments to the color mix brings the basic shade alive:  the eye-catching effects previously available only for plastic packaging can be reproduced in a durable floor covering.  The look of natural marble or granite is completely convincing:  you would have to touch the floor to believe it is made from PVC.

The pigments perform best in combination with traditional coloring pigments.  They require no special production techniques and behave exactly like standard PVC colorants, mixed with the raw polymer before extrusion.  The pigments disperse easily and require only 1-2% concentration to transform the appearance of homogeneous plastic flooring.

Bolon PVC carpeting, enabled by Gislaved

There is another area of plastic flooring materials where Ciba^® XYMARA™ pigments are making a difference:  PVC carpeting.  Unlike natural fibers, PVC provides a hard-wearing carpet that is easy to clean and hypoallergenic.  The manufacturing process involves calandering:  passing PVC between steel rollers to produce a thin foil that can then be sliced into narrow fibers and woven into carpet form.  

Gislaved Folie AB of Sweden is a world leader in this technology; its carpeting customer, Bolon AB, exports about 90% of its production of woven PVC flooring to more than twenty countries worldwide.  By using Ciba^® XYMARA™ pigments, it has not only added a unique lustrous appearance to its product line, but effectively tripled the number of available shades, since each of its current colors can now also benefit from two XYMARA™ effects: either pearlescent or metallic.

Again, there is no difference in production between conventional pigments and Ciba^® XYMARA™ pigments: the colors are mixed before calandering, so that the effect is present throughout the plastic.  It will never wear away or flake off, but will last the lifetime of the carpet.

Flooring is no longer the forgotten side of interior design. Thanks to Ciba^® XYMARA™ pigments, its future is not just bright – it’s shiny, pearly and glowing.