When it comes to chemical resistance, silicone rubber is an exceptional material boasting strong chemical compatibility with a wide range of solvents and commonly used industrial reagents. This extraordinary chemical resistance stands out among other common elastomers, which often fail in contact with common solvents and oils. As silicone is naturally hydrophobic, it boasts excellent resistance to water and weathering, common alcohols, glycols and other medium polarity solvents. Additionally, silicone rubber has excellent chemical compatibility with common food oils such as vegetable oils or animal fat oils. This makes silicone particularly useful for a wide variety of food, water and medical grade applications.  

Typically, general use silicone also boasts good compatibility with and common industrial oils and lubricants, including mineral oil. However, extended exposure can lead to some swelling and decrease in hardness, which may be undesirable based on the end-use application of the silicone article, such as in gasket or other sealing applications. In these cases, specialized grades of silicone can be compounded and extruded which offer higher oil resistance than typical silicone grades.

At Jehbco, we specialize in custom silicone extrusions for a variety of high-spec applications. In addition to our standard general purpose and silicone grade materials, oil-resistant silicone can also be manufactured in 60 ShA hardness grades. This material has been tested for fluid resistance using standard ASTM reference oils IRM 901 and IRM 903, and also Glysantin® G40 aqueous coolant. For these grades, excellent retention of mechanical properties has been demonstrated, including test for hardness, tensile strength, elongation at break and volume change, thus providing our customers with peace of mind against product failure in applications where extensive oil contact is required.

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