Plastic and the future

An example of the way in which process competition works in the manufacture of plastics is the story of acrylonitrile. The first process for the production of this plastic was based upon the reaction between hydrogen cyanide and acetylene, both hard to handle, poisonous, and explosive chemicals. The raw material costs were relatively low as compared to materials for other monomers, but the plant investment and manufacturing costs were too high. As a result, originally acrylonitrile monomer (1950s) sold for about 30 cents per pound and the future of the material looked dim as other plastics such as polyethylene became available at much lower prices due to their lower production costs. 

The emotive issues related to plastic and the environment have yet to be logically and scientifically resolved. However, predictable future trends which will increase the use of plastics in pharmaceutical applications are likely to include ... 

Huckestein, B., Plastics recycling — today and the future, Proceedings Polymer Processing Society European Meeting, Stuttgart, Germany, 26-28 Sep. 1995. 

The consumption of 0x0 alcohol products in the United States, western Europe, and Japan for 1993 is shown in Table 7 [33], Table 7 shows that more than 50% of the total demand for 0x0 product is for n-butyraldehyde. Most is used to produce 2 ethyl hexanol. This is followed by demand for detergent alcohols, plasticizers, and the rest. The highest volume products have the lowest margin. The most profitable are the specialty 0x0 products which constitute the lower volumes. Most of the future growth is expected to be in the specialty products as well. 

Chapter 2 describes the factors which were instrumental in the history of plastics and the development from natural materials to semi-synthetics and then to the synthetics we know today. Collections contain examples of aU groups of plastics. They represent both the materials and technology available at different periods of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The future of plastics and, thereby, of future collections is presented. 

Now, as an example of the environmental issues in Japan, I would like to take a look at the today s situation and the future outlook of plastic waste management. 

The next section introduces resins which are used in the nonmetals (composites and plastics) that have replaced finished metals in some products. Following this section on resins, the chapter continues with a description of composites and plastics and their future trends. 

The book has 13 chapters, each prepared by a group of experts from different parts of the world. The first chapter, the introduction, provides the basic information. A review of the use of plastics in construction looking at its past and the future trends is covered in detail, in Chapter 2. 

It will not be easy to find a simple, rapid solution to all such problems without involving the participation and efficiencies of the plastics industry. The present problems, as well as ones that can be expected in the future, will not reduce the high innovation potential of plastics, and the growth market can be expected to expand continually. The reason for this optimism is the past history and ability of plastics to produce a new generation of materials to meet new requirements. When the market is ready, plastics could become the world s most fire-resistant material (which is not typical today), the strongest material in the world, and other factors highlighted throughout this book. 

In addition to the development of these novel materials the number of possible applications for more standard plastic/polymeric materials will continue to grow and the future for plastics in electronics is certainly an exciting one. With doped polymeric materials actually forming the active components of many semiconductor devices, it may not be too long before polymer-based semiconductors, solar cells and batteries are in routine production and the all-plastic transistor radio becomes a reality. 

If Bensaude Vincent documents the plasticity of plastic, Mike Michael draws attention to the limits of such plasticity that is, through the laboratory and factory processes where plasticity comes to be realized. Plasticity thus belongs to the sphere of production - or rather, it has until very recently. With the introduction of home 3D printers, it would appear that the plasticity of production now extends into the domestic sphere, and, with this redistribution of plastic s plasticity, anyone can produce anything at any time. Michael traces how these abstract claims for the democratization of production of plastic objects are rendered, and the ways in which they are intertwined with reconfigurations and retrenchments of space (domestic, industrial, environmental), human bodies and minds (manual and ICT skills) and the future (utopian, apocalyptic). In other words, domestic 3D printers mediate a range of plastic s emergent properties that are complexly sociomaterial, spatiotemporal and actual-virtual. 

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