Polyacetals and Related Materials

From the time that formaldehyde was first isolated by Butlerov in 1859 polymeric forms have been encountered by those handling the material. Nevertheless it is only since the late 1950s that polymers have been available with the requisite stability and toughness to make them useful plastics. In this period these materials (referred to by the manufacturers as acetal resins or polyacetals) have achieved rapid acceptance as engineering materials competitive not only with the nylons but also with metals and ceramics. 

The first commercially available acetal resin was marketed by Du Pont in 1959 under the trade name Delrin after the equivalent of ten million pounds had been spent in research or polymers of formaldehyde. The Du Pont monopoly was unusually short lived as Celcon, as acetal copolymer produced by the Celanese Corporation, became available in small quantities in 1960. This material became commercially available in 1962 and later in the same year Farbwerke Hoechst combined with Celanese to produce similar products in Germany (Hostaform). In 1963 Celanese also combined with the Dainippon Celluloid Company of Osaka, Japan and Imperial Chemical Industries to produce acetal copolymers in Japan and Britain respectively under the trade names Duracon and Alkon (later changed to Kematal). In the early 1970s Ultraform GmbH (a joint venture of BASF and Degussa) introduced a copolymer under the name Ultraform and the Japanese company Asahi Chemical a homopolymer under the name Tenal. 

By the late 1990s the main manufacturers were the American-based Du Pont, the Japanese-based Polyplastics and the European-based Ticona with similar plant capacities totally some 60% of the global capacity which is of the order of 600000t.p.a. Among at least eight plants in Asia those of Mitsubishi Gas and Asahi were significant as was also that of BASF (see also Section 19.3.7). 

As with other so-called engineering thermoplastics, the polyacetals are available modified with glass fibre, and may contain fire retardants, and some grades are blended with PTFE. In 1982 Hoechst introduced blends of poly acetals 

Besides being commercially referred to as polyacetal materials polyformaldehydes are also often known as polyoxymethylenes and are the simplest type of a family of aliphatic polyethers. 

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Brydson JA (1993) Polyacetals and related materials. In Plastic materials. Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, pp. 531-555... 

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