Plastics marketing

U.S. Foamed Plastics Market and Directoy, Technomic Publishing Co., Stamford, Coim., 1973. 

The future for mica is ia the speciaUty plastic market, eg, as a molecular barrier ia plastic containers and ia plastic automobile parts. 

The and C q iso-phthalates (DINP and DIDP) generally compete with DEHP as commodity general-purpose plasticizers. Other iso-phthalates are available at opposite ends of the carbon number range (eg, diisoheptyl phthalate (DIHP), C, and diisotridecyl phthalate (DTDP), but these serve more speciaUty markets. The Cg iso-phthalate, diisooctyl phthalate (DIOP), has also had traditional sales ia the commodity plasticizer markets where it is seen as an equivalent to DEHP. 

Bayer marketed PPS compounds in the United States under the trade name Tedur, but the company has exited the PPS business. PPS is also marketed in the United States by GE Plastics, whose source of neat resin is Tosoh Corporation of Japan. GE Plastics markets PPS under the trade name Supec PPS. Patent activity by Tennessee Eastman describes an alternative process for the production of poly(phenylene sulfide/disulfide), although samples of such product have not appeared as of early 1996. Both Phillips and Hoechst Celanese have aimounced plans to debotdeneck their existing U.S. faciUties in order to meet anticipated market growth. 

Reinfoiced plastics aie a relatively small, but very important part of the total plastics market. In 1994, U.S. production was approximately 1.4 biUion kg,... 

It is interesting to note that although the market for natural rubber has grown considerably, that for the other diene rubbers has either been of slow growth or has declined. Data for approximate overall plastics production (not from IlSRP data) have also been included as a comparison of the relative sizes of the rubber and plastics markets. 

Plastics Institute) established the materials database called Polymat. This program brings greater availability into a plastics market in which a general perspective is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. This database contains information on plastics and elastomers, supplying about thirty to fifty properties for each material. Initially some six thousand plastics, from about seventy manufacturers, were stored. 

Chemical Market Resources Inc., Plasticizers, Markets, Technologies Trends 1999-2004, Houston, TX (1999). 

Polycarbonate is a thermoplastic and is often marketed under trade-names such as Lexan or Tuffak. It should not be confused with acrylic plastics, marketed under tradenames such as Plexiglas or Lucite, which are flammable and exhibit a brittle failure mode. 

The fibers made from Nylon 66 are durable, tough, and abrasion-resistant, which suits them for tire cord. They are easy to color, which gives them a secure place in the carpet market (and on the floor). The additional attributes of moldability or processibility make Nylon 66 suitable in the engineering plastics market. 

Plasticizers are used in combination with cellulosics, vinyls, acrylic, and styrene resins, as well as polyvinylacetate, polyamides, polycarbonate, and other synthetic and natural resins. Because PVC consumes about 70% of all plasticizers produced, the plasticizer market is closely related to the vinyl resins production. During the last ten years, the vinyl market grew at an average rate of 18% per year and has reached 1.6 billion pounds in 1964. The growth in vinyl resins and plasticizer production was paralleled by a drop in resin price and a shift towards more effective and less expensive plasticizers. 

A still lower-cost route to PHAs is genetic modification of plants to directly produce the final polymer. Monsanto (and others) pursued this approach and is currently being cofunded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) in a collaborative research project led by Metabolix. Switchgrass will be modified to produce PHAs, which can then be extracted from the plant material and processed to obtain a consistent composition and the desired material properties. The plant material remaining after PHA extraction can be used to produce fuels, power, or other products, creating the opportunity for a "plants as factories" biorefinery. Applications for polymers with properties similar to those of PHAs consume on the order of 13.6 million metric t annually, and it is possible that in the future PHAs will figure prominently in the plastics market. 

Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) is by far the largest volume outlet for n-butanol in the plasticizer market. Monsanto is the world s principal supplier of this fast fusing plasticizer for PVC resin. BBP has become a key plasticizer in vinyl flooring compositions as a result of its stain resistance and processability. 

As the seventies got underway, the premium price on the GP linear phthalates decreased to where these plasticizers also began to capture a share of the general purpose plasticizer market, particularly if improved low temperature flexibility was important. The phthalate of the Cn fraction of the linear C7-C9-C11 alcohols was introduced by Monsanto and found acceptance in high temperature wire and cable where it competes with branched chain DTDP. In Europe, linear alcohol phthalates based on alcohol blends made by oxonation of cracked wax olefins gained acceptance. These differed from the U.S. linear alcohol blends in having both odd and even carbon chain lengths. 

Phthalates of Cg-C o average carbon number monohydric alcohols continue to dominate the PVC plasticizer market, and the likely scenario is for this to continue through the eighties. There have been, however, numerous developments which will... 

TABLE 15.13 Thermoset Plastics Market TABLE 15.15 Phenolic Plastics Markets... 

Plasticizers are typically organic liquids of very low volatility, which are miscible with a polymer, and are added to it to improve processability and, in larger amounts (20-80 parts per hundred of resin), to make it soft and flexible, or even rubbery and/or adhesive. The major portion of the plasticizer market (80%) is aliphatic and aromatic esters, which go to convert rigid PVC into flexible PVC. The remainder goes to improve the processability of cellulosics, and for a variety of specialized uses in other polymers. 

Polymer Blends. Blending of polymers with each other accounts for approximately 40 percent of the present plastics market, and the practice is growing continually, because it permits the development of improved properties without the cost of inventing new polymers. When polymers are fairly miscible, as in the polyethylenes, and in polyphenylene ether plus polystyrene, blending can be used to produce intermediate properties and balance of properties. Most polymer blends... 

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