Plastics world production

Steel Processing Plastics World Production Equipment Quick Frozen Foods Organic Finishing... 

Gibbsite is aii important technical product and world production, predominantly by the Bayer process, is more than 50 million metric tons aimuaHy. Alost (90%) is calcined to alumina [1344-28-1 j, Al202, to be used for aluminum production. Tlie remainder is used by the chemical industry as filler for paper, plastics, rubber, and as the starting material for the preparation of various aluminum compounds, alumina ceramics, refractories, polishing products, catalysts, and catalyst supports. 

Until the end of World War II, coal tar was the main source of these aromatic chemicals. However, the enormously increased demands by the rapidly expanding plastics and synthetic-fiber industries have greatly outstripped the potential supply from coal carbonization. This situation was exacerbated by the cessation of the manufacture in Europe of town gas from coal in the eady 1970s, a process carried out preponderantly in the continuous vertical retorts (CVRs), which has led to production from petroleum. Over 90% of the world production of aromatic chemicals in the 1990s is derived from the petrochemical industry, whereas coal tar is chiefly a source of anticorrosion coatings, wood preservatives, feedstocks for carbon-black manufacture, and binders for road surfacings and electrodes. 

The annual production of celluloid is now negligible compared with the total world production of plastics. 

World production of unsaturated polyester resins in 1997 was of the order of 1.7 X 10 tonnes, with the USA accounting for about 45% and Western Europe 27%. Over 75% is used in reinforced plastics, with the rest being used for such diverse applications as car repair putties, cultured marble , wood substitution and surface coatings. The pattern of consumption in 1993 of reinforced polyesters in the USA was reported as ... 

I mentioned in the preface to the sixth edition that when I began preparation of the first edition of this book in the early 1960s world production of plastics materials was of the order of 9 million tonnes per annum. In the late 1990s it has been estimated at 135 million tonnes per annum In spite of this enormous growth my prediction in the first edition that the likelihood of discovering new important general purposes polymers was remote but that new special purpose polymers would continue to be introduced has proved correct. 

Urea is used to make urea-formaldehyde plastics and resins and, increasingly, as a nitrogenous fertilizer (46.7% N). World production of urea was 23 million tonnes in 1984. 

Both processes rely on a fast flow system and the rapid quenching of product gases yields of up to 90% can be attained. It is salutory to note that US production of this highly toxic compound is 600000 tonnes pa (1992) and world production exceeds one million tonnes pa. Of this, 41% is used to manufacture adiponitrile for nylon and 28% for acrylic plastics ... 

China clay or kmlin, which is predominantly kaolinite, is particularly valuable because it is essentially free from iron impurities (and therefore colourless). World production in 1991 was 24.7M1 (USA 39%, UK 13%, Colombia, Korea and USSR 7% each). In the USA over half of this vast tonnage is used for paper filling or paper coating and only 130000 tonnes was used for china, crockery, and earthenware, which is now usually made from ball clay, a particularly fine-grained, highly plastic material which is predominantly kaolinite together with clay-mica and quartz. Some 800000 tonnes of ball clay is used annually in the USA for white ware, table ware, wall and floor tiles, sanitary ware, and electrical porcelain. 

The world production of plastics in 1995 is projected at 76 million metric tons (mT) with an annual growth rate (AGR) of 3.7%. The expected AGR of PBAs is 12% and that of composites 16%. In 1987, 21% of polymers were used in blends and 29% in composites and filled plastics [56]. If this trend continues, by 1995 all manufactured resins will be used in multiphase polymeric systems. Two factors moderating the tendency are ... 

In 2002, the world production of polymers (not including synthetic libers and rubbers) was ca. 190 million metric tons. Of these, the combined production of poly(ethylene terephthalate), low- and high-density polyethyelene, polypropylene, poly(vinyl chloride), polystyrene, and polyurethane was 152.3 milhon metric tons [1]. These synthetic, petroleum-based polymers are used, inter alia, as engineering plastics, for packing, in the construction-, car-, truck- and food-industry. They are chemically very stable, and can be processed by injection molding, and by extrusion from the melt in a variety of forms. These attractive features, however, are associated with two main problems ... 

This is one of the most important industrial oxidation processes. Terephthalic acid (TPA) is mostly used for the manufacture of polyester fibers, films and plastics, and its world production capacity reaches 8 Mt/year. Two major processes have been developed. The Amoco-Mid Century process produces terephthalic acid by the one-step oxidation of p-xylene in acetic acid, whereas the Dynamit Nobel process yields dimethyl terephthalate in several steps and in the absence of solvent.83,84,86... 

Polyvinylchloride (PVC) is among the largest commodity plastics with a world production of about 30 million tonnes in 2006. The yearly growth in the decade... 

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