PPR pipes are essential materials used in home decoration. When choosing water pipes, we found that PPR pipes come in various colors. Is white pipe better or green pipe more environmentally friendly?

How should I choose a water pipe? Next, Yizhou Decoration will answer the question of how to choose the color of water pipes.

Firstly, most PPR water pipes are white at the beginning because the natural color of PPR raw materials is transparent white, making the process of making white water pipes simple.

But later it was discovered that white water pipes have better transparency, and for water pipes, good transparency is not a good thing. Everyone knows about photosynthesis, right? Light can be seen inside the water pipe, but the microorganisms that need light in the water are not yet active. This is how the green moss inside the water pipe comes about.

There are many colors of PPR water pipes commonly seen in the market, such as green, white, gray, and even blue, yellow, orange red, etc. The main reason for the appearance of so many colors is that different color "color masterbatch" is added during the production of water pipes. So what exactly is "color masterbatch"?

1. What is a colorant?

The main raw materials for colorants include carriers, colorants, and additives.

The carrier is an important component of colorants, whose main function is to carry coloring agents and disperse and fuse them into plastics that need to change color. Colorants are key components in colorants, which enable colorants to present different colors; The content of additives is relatively low, usually to help the coloring agent disperse or obtain some special properties, such as antioxidant and photostability.

Color masterbatch is generally divided into universal color masterbatch and specialized color masterbatch, and their difference lies in the choice of carrier. For example, PPR is generally used as the carrier for PPR specific colorants to ensure good compatibility. Due to the poor compatibility of universal colorants, most legitimate manufacturers only produce specialized colorants.

Why add colorants?

Pure PPR raw materials are actually colorless and transparent, without any color. This makes it easier for algae and bacteria to grow in the water pipes due to the lack of light coverage, which can pollute the water quality and accelerate the aging of the pipes, affecting the service life of PPR pipes.

Therefore, according to the requirements of national standards, colorants must be added in the production of PPR water pipes to ensure good shading performance.

PS: Many people may think that white pipes do not have added colorants, but this is actually incorrect. In fact, white pipes add white colorants.

3. Is the colorant healthy and environmentally friendly?

From the perspective of the main components of colorants used in the manufacturing of water pipes, the carrier PPR material itself is healthy and environmentally friendly, while colorants, if obtained through legitimate channels, are also not a problem. The problem is that colorants from unreliable sources may contain heavy metal salts such as lead and chromium, as some types of colorants may contain such components.

The quality of colorants produced by different manufacturers varies due to different raw material choices. Good colorants have good fluidity and compatibility, and can be more evenly dispersed in plastics without adversely affecting the mechanical properties of the plastic itself. In addition, for PPR water pipes, the coverage power of colorants is a very important parameter, which determines the shading performance of the water pipe. The shading performance also means the ability of PPR water pipes to inhibit the growth of algae and bacteria in the water pipe.

When purchasing PPR pipes, we encounter various colors. Some people believe that white pipes are non-toxic, green pipes are environmentally friendly, while gray pipes may be recycled pipes mixed with waste materials and are unwilling to use them.

In fact, the quality of PPR pipes has nothing to do with the color of PPR pipes. Because according to national regulations, PPR pipes must have good light blocking performance, and all PPR pipes for home decoration are buried in the dark, there is basically no saying that any color of pipe is better than other colors of pipe.

Home decorators are here to tell you that the color of the pipe does not directly reflect the quality of the pipe, the difference in color is only the difference in the color masterbatch added. The key to choosing a pipe is to consider its intrinsic quality.