Epoxy plasticizers consumption

The consumption of epoxy plasticizers has grown in the past few years because of the interest in vegetable oil derived plasticizers. Vegetable oils and other natural oils are not compatible with PVC and will exude over time consequently chemical modification... 

Antimonious acid H3Sb03 and its salts are less well characterized but a few meta-antimonites and polyantimonites are known, e.g. NaSb02, NaSb305.H20 and Na2Sb407. The oxide itself finds extensive use as a flame retardant in fabrics, paper, paints, plastics, epoxy resins, adhesives and rubbers. The scale of industrial use can be gauged from the US statistics which indicate an annual consumption of Sb203 of some 10000 tonnes in that country. 

Bisphenol. Bisphenol-A (4,4 -isopropyli-dene-diphenol) accounts for 35 percent of phenol consumption and is used mainly in the production of polycarbonates (55%) and epoxy resins (25%), two of the fastest-growing families of plastics. Other uses are in the manufacture of flame retardant such as tetrabromobisphenol-A, polysulfone resins, and polyacrylate resins. The consumption of bisphenol in the United States in 1999 topped 2.1 billion lb. 

Among these processes, only the Hock process and the toluene oxidation are important industrially. The other processes were discarded for economic reasons. In the Hock process acetone is formed as a by-product. This has not, however, hindered the expansion of this process, because there is a market for acetone. New plants predominantly use the cumene process. More than 95% of the 4,691,000 my (m = metric tonnes) consumed is produced by the cumene peroxidation process. Phenol s consumption growth rate of 3% is primarily based on its use in engineering plastics such as polycarbonates, polyetherimide and poly(phenylene oxide), and epoxy resins for the electronic industry. The Mitsui Company is, for instance, the world s second largest producer of phenol. Japan s production... 

Fatty acid epoxides have numerous uses. In particular, oils and fats of vegetable and animal origin represent the greatest proportion of current consumption of renewable raw materials in the chemical industry, providing applications that cannot be met by petrochemicals [64]. Polyether polyols produced from methyl oleate by the Prileshajev epoxidation (using peracetic acid) are an example. Epoxidized soybean oil (ESBO) is a mixture of the glycerol esters of epoxidized linoleic, linolenic, and oleic acids. It is used as a plasticizer and stabilizer for poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) [1] and as a stabilizer for PVC resins to improve flexibility, elasticity, and toughness [65]. The ESBO market is second to that of epoxy resins and its world wide production... 

The most widely used plastic materials in the printed wiring industry are epoxy resins based on bisphenol A. Epoxy-glass fabric laminates account for approximately 80% of the consumption of printed wiring substrates in the USA. In particular, laminates with specifications equal to or better than NEMA grade GIO or FR4, which combine very good dimensional stability with excellent electrical properties, are suitable for the fabrication of high density wiring that is required for computers and telecommunications equipment. 

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