Turf for Eternity

The lawn on which the national football teams of Italy and France played for the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Berlin's Olympic Stadium on July 9 is "hot stuff." Thousands of orders have come in and more arrive every day. Fans and souvenir hunters have now been able to purchase a portion of this lawn, cast and preserved for eternity in PLEXIT^®, a viscous methacrylic resin marketed by the Degussa Specialty Acrylics Business Unit via its Business Segment Flooring, and distributed in cooperation with Brenntag. Core products of the Business Segment Flooring are rapidly curing DEGADUR^® reactive resins for manufacturing industrial floors and bridge sealants.

Before the precious pieces of turf preserved in PLEXIT^® can adorn desks or homes, they go through an embedding process that calls for ultra-sophisticated technical know-how. "There are only a handful of manufacturers in the whole of Germany who master the process," says Matthias Sáfadi-Müller, Manager of Business Segment Flooring.

Fresh turf with certificate of authenticity

The process involves pouring some PLEXIT® into a preformed PMMA dish that serves as the base. The section of turf is placed on top and completely covered with liquid PLEXIT® resin. In the third step, a further layer of PLEXIT® is applied that completely encapsulates the turf. The finished exhibit obtained after the casting and post-treatment steps must be optically perfect and present a gleaming appearance. The lawn itself also requires preparation. It is first stored in a cold store at six degrees Celsius to keep it fresh and green. Around 500 grams of PLEXIT® are required per embedded section. It takes one and a half days for the casting resin to cure completely under exposure to UV light.

The edges are then trimmed off the block measuring 14 centimeters in length and eight centimeters in width. The acrylic is then polished and a plaque is attached. The coveted items were sold in a strictly limited edition with a certificate of authenticity.

The application and use of PLEXIT^® requires a high degree of specific know-how. A decisive factor for achieving an optically perfect end-quality is to prepare the relevant object while taking into account the specific aspects of its material. Experience with embeddings made from other plastics is insufficient on its own.  It is requisite that the user has carried out experimental preparatory work with the object to be molded.

Degussa advises those requiring PLEXIT^® embeddings for individual objects, occasional series and campaigns to employ only those plastics processors who have acquired appropriate specialist knowledge and use the necessary technical facilities. A list of such specialist companies is available on request by sending an e-mail to degadur@degussa.com.

Further information on PLEXIT^® as well as methacrylic resins of Degussa is available here.