Petrochemical-based polymers additives

It needs to be recognized that the data for PEAl and PEA B/WP represent engineering estimates. In addition, there is good reason to expect improvements in the actual performance versus the estimates. Despite years of development work, the commercial manufacturing process for PEA is in its infancy. If the experience from petrochemical-based polymers offers any instruction, it is that process improvements implemented in the early years of a technology typically lead to substantial cost improvements. This is because the pursuit... 

The properties of PLA are significantly influenced by the stereochemistry of its monomers. When PLA has high stereochemical purity, it tends to form a highly crystalline structure. Copolymerization of different lactide isomers can yield a variety characteristics of PLA. The effect of isomerization in PLA can be detected by IR and NMR spectroscopic methods. Many studies have proven that PLA has a low solubility in a wide range of solvents/liquids, such as water, alcohol and paraffin. This indicates that PLA can be safely employed as a food packaging material without causing adverse health effects. In addition, PLA also possesses barrier properties that are just as effective as LDPE and PS. The green aspect of PLA means that it represents a viable environmentally friendly substitute for petrochemical-based polymers. 

In polymer applications derivatives of oils and fats, such as epoxides, polyols and dimerizations products based on unsaturated fatty acids, are used as plastic additives or components for composites or polymers like polyamides and polyurethanes. In the lubricant sector oleochemically-based fatty acid esters have proved to be powerful alternatives to conventional mineral oil products. For home and personal care applications a wide range of products, such as surfactants, emulsifiers, emollients and waxes, based on vegetable oil derivatives has provided extraordinary performance benefits to the end-customer. Selected products, such as the anionic surfactant fatty alcohol sulfate have been investigated thoroughly with regard to their environmental impact compared with petrochemical based products by life-cycle analysis. Other product examples include carbohydrate-based surfactants as well as oleochemical based emulsifiers, waxes and emollients. 

Because many polymer additives are likewise based on petrochemicals, additive use and production is tied to oil prices as well. Additives are often more expensive than the resins they are used in yet these additives can provide synergistic value-added functions to raw resin that offset their own costs. With the goal of increasing value when loaded in polymers, recent overall trends indicate both lower loadings of more-effective high-priced additives and higher loadings of low-cost additives, such as fillers and reinforcements [2-13]. 

In the laboratory, styrene can be prepared by the decarboxylation of cinnamic acid, as shown in Reaction 1, using dry distillation. However, styrene is produced commercially from ethylene and benzene, two basic ingiedienis of the petrochemical industry. With electrophilic addition of ethylene to benzene, a mixture of ethyl benzene and diethylbenzene is obtained as own in Reaction 2. The dehydrogenation of these benzene derivatives produces slyrene and divinylbenzene, respectively (Reaction 3). A detailed synthesis of styrene is described by Berthelot et al (6). As mentioned earlier, styrene is an important monomer in many industrial polymers. Additionally, divinylbenzene which is produced as a by-product is an effective crosslinker for ion-exchange resins, polystyrene-based supported reagents and catalysts, and low profile additive in a number of liquid molding resin systems. 

The environmental effects of substituting bio-based polymers for petrochemical polymers on a large scale were estimated [13]. Two perspectives were taken. First, the savings of fossil fuels, the effects of greenhouse emissions and the consequences for land use (in Europe) were studied. Second, it was analysed whether the lower specific impact of bio-based potymers (e.g. kg-C02 eq. per kg of polymer) can (over)compensate the additional environmental impacts caused by expected high growth in petrochemical plastics. 

Other modifications of vegetable oils in polymer chemistry include the introduction of alkenyl functions, the study of novel polyesters and polyethers and the synthesis of semi-interpenetrating networks based on castor oil (the triglyceride of ricinoleic acid) [42], and also the production of sebacic acid and 10-undecenoic acid from castor oil [44]. Additionally, the recent application of metathesis reactions to unsaturated fatty acids has opened a novel avenue of exploitation leading to a variety of interesting monomers and polymers, including aliphatic polyesters and polyamides previously derived from petrochemical sources [42, 45]. 

Addition polymers are produced in largest tonnages among industrial polymers. The most important monomers are ethylene, propylene, and butadiene. They are based on low-cost petrochemicals or natural gas and are produced by cracking or refining of crude oil. Polyethylene, polypropylene, poly(vinyl chloride), and polystyrene are the four major addition polymers and are by far the least-expensive industrial polymers on the market. In addition to these four products, a wide variety of other addition polymers are commercially available. 

Abstract Succimc add is an important platform chemical derived from petrochemical or bio-based feedstocks and can be transformed into a wide range of chemicals and polymers. Increasing demand for biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) will open up a new market for succinic acid. In this chapter, the synthesis of succinic acid is briefly reviewed. We focus on the polymerization, crystalline structure, thermal and mechanical properties, and biodegradability of PBS and its copolymers. PBS shows balanced mechanical properties similar to those of polyethylene and excellent performance during thermal processing. In addition, PBS and its copolymers can biodegrade in various enviromnents, such as soil burial, river, sea, activated... 

The increasing use of bio-based, but non-degradable polymers as additives in biopolymer blends tends to impair their biodegradabiUty. For co- and ter-polymers, the increasing use of non bio-based blend components or petrochemical monomer raw material necessarily leads to a reduction in the amount of bio-based material in the final polymer material. Currently, no minimum content levels have been established for bio-based material components in biopolymer blends and co- or ter-polymers. Therefore, polypropylene-starch blends or various copolyesters are considered biopolymers, even though they are non-biodegradable and their bio-based content is significantly smaller than their petrochemical content. 

The high stereospecific oxygen content of carbohydrate feedstocks versus petrochemicals represents a competitive advantage in certain market segments, but it restricts the use of these cheap and abundant plant-based feedstocks for other applications. The restriction is twofold not only are most synthetic polymers like polyethylene and polypropylene structurally quite dissimilar to carbohydrates and derivatives, but in addition, such highly oxidized... 

---