The barriers towards the increased use of HFFR materials in cables have been reduced but not yet eliminated. For environmental and safety reasons the customers are increasingly asking for halogen free cables. This leads the suppliers of these materials to develop more and more competitive compounds, price wise and quality wise.

In this project it has been demonstreted that compounds exist which fulfil requirements for nearly all properties, except the flexibility requirement for flexible cords where improvements are still needed.

The universal material with optimum properties in every respect has not yet been developed. But ways have been found to improve water resistance, oil resistance, UV resistance and processability to acceptable levels.

The final step will be to combine the advantages into one single compound, but this will probably take some years to develop if possible at all.

The project has shown that significant improvements in processing can be obtained during the production of optical cable by adjusting the design of the screw and other extruder tools.