Custom wire baskets are frequently outfitted with different polymers to improve the basket’s structural durability or to better hold and protect delicate parts. Finding the right polymer for your steel wire basket coating is determined by your process. One of the more popular polymers used for basket coatings, polypropylene, has distinct properties that may make it ideal for your needs.

What Is Polypropylene Material?
Polypropylene is a material that is frequently compared to PVC (polyvinyl chloride). While not as frequently used as PVC, polypropylene is still a useful material for coating custom wire baskets. A rigid, crystalline thermoplastic, polypropylene is produced from propene or propylene monomer. It’s one of the cheapest plastics available today and is used in applications both as a plastic and a fiber in industries such as automotive manufacturing, furniture assembly, and the aerospace sector.

What Is Polypropylene Used For?
Due to polypropylene structure’s rigidity and relative cheapness, it’s used in various applications. It has good chemical resistance and weldability, which makes it ideal for the automotive industry, consumer goods, furniture market, and industrial applications such as custom wire baskets.

Why You Should Use Polypropylene
1.Liquid Cleaning Processes
An ideal use case for polypropylene would be an aqueous parts washing process where the basket being coated would be submerged in non-oxidizing agents for prolonged periods of time. In such an environment, the impermeability of what is polypropylene would allow it to completely protect the coated basket from the liquid cleaning solution. Additionally, so long as the internal temperatures in the wash do not exceed 180°F, the coating would most likely last for many uses. Additionally, polypropylene is dense enough to make it nearly impervious to water. This makes it an ideal material for sealing custom wire baskets against liquids.
2.Parts Protection
Another reason to use polypropylene would be to protect delicate parts from getting scratched. While not quite as soft as some formulations of PVC, polypropylene is still a semi-soft material that will absorb impacts—helping minimize the risk of parts getting scratched during the agitation cycle of many aqueous-based cleaning processes. Since a polypropylene structure will absorb shock rather than redistribute it, a polymer-coated basket would be ideal for processing delicate parts such as glass tubes or crystal components.