Rubbers, world production

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. 

Table 5. World Production Facilities for Nitrile Rubber...

The butadiene-acrylonitrile rubbers were first prepared about 1930 about five years after the initial development of free-radical-initiated emulsion polymerisation. Commercial production commenced in Germany in 1937, with the product being known as Buna N. By the late 1980s there were about 350 grades marketed by some 20 producers and by the early 1990s world production was of the order of 250000 tonnes per annum, thus classifying it as a major special purpose rubber. 

World production of I2 in 1992 approached 15 000 tonnes, the dominant producers being Japan 41%, Chile 40%, USA 10% and the former Soviet Union 9%. Crude iodine is packed in double polythene-lined fibre drums of 10-50-kg capacity. Resublimed iodine is transported in lined fibre drums (11.3 kg) or in bottles containing 0.11, 0.45 or 2.26 kg. The price of I2 has traditionally fluctuated wildly. Thus, because of acute over-supply in 1990 the price for I2 peaked at 22/kg in 1988, falling to 12/kg in 1990 and 9.50/kg in 1992. Unlike CI2 and Br2, iodine has no predominant commercial outlet. About 50% is incorporated into a wide variety of organic compounds and about 15% each is accounted for as resublimed iodine, KI, and other inorganics. The end uses include catalysts for synthetic rubber manufacture, animal- and fowl-feed supplements. 

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 ... 

Klingensmith, B., Recycling, production and use of reprocessed rubbers, Rubber World, 203, 16, 1991. Drozdovskii, V.F., Production of comminuted vulcanizates, Prog. Rubber Plast. TechnoL, 14, 116, 1998. 

In 1910 the price of rubber was 2.88 a pound, world production was 94,000 tons, and wild rabber from Brazil accounted for 83,000 tons. In 1912 the price collapsed, and by 1932 a pound of rubber cost 25. In 1937 the world bought more than 1.1 million tons of mbber, less than 2% of which came from Brazil. The rabber cities of the Amazon became near ghost towns as the market for wild rabber vanished. The opulent opera house in Manaus had barely opened its doors when the curtain came down on the Brazilian rabber economy. 

Chloroprene production can be equated approximately to the amount of polymer produced. World production of dry polychloroprene was 135 thousand tonnes in 1960, 254 thousand tonnes in 1970, 314 thousand tonnes in 1980 and 321 thousand tonnes in 1989 (Stewart, 1993). World polychloroprene capacity in 1983 was reported to be (thousand tonnes) United States, 213 Germany, 60 France, 40 United Kingdom, 30 Japan, 85 and centrally plarmed economy countries, 220 (Kleinschmidt, 1986). Current capacities are reported to be (thousand tonnes) United States, 163 Germany, 60 France, 40 United Kingdom, 33 Japan, 88 central Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, 40 and People s Republic of China, 20 (International Institute of Synthetic Rubber Producers, 1997). 

Today at least 35 different types of carbon black are used as fillers in rubber, and about 80 types of carbon black are used in pigments or special applications. The total world production in 1994 was 6 x 1061. More than 90% of the carbon black was produced for the use in the rubber industry. 

Myhre, M. MacKillop, D.A. Modification of crumb rubber to enhance physical properties of recycled rubber products. Rubber World 1996, 214 (2), 42-46. 

Figure 16.1. World production of man-made plastics, excluding rubbers and fibers, is expected to grow from 30 thousand tons in 1900 to 151 million tons in 2000, i.e., by...

Then yoimg trees were cultivated from the seeds in British botanical gardens. They gave birth to vast plantations of rubber trees in the colonies, mainly in Malaysia, Indonesia and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). By the First World War, only a neghgible part of the world production of rubber was from Brazil. 

All other industrial coimtries remained content with natural rubber. Its qualities were still better overall. However, all was to change during the Second World War, when almost all the rubber plantations in South-Eastern Asia were occupied by the Japanese. This encouraged the search for new methods of synthesizing rubber, especially in the United States and Canada. Soon, the world production of artificial rubber caught up with and, by the 1960s, had surpassed the production of natural rubber. 

Figure 33-2. Annual change in world production., Pr (tons/annum) for thermoplastics and thermosets (PL), natural fibers (NF), chemical fibers (CF), synthetic rubbers (SR), and natural rubber (NR) since the year 1940. (After H.-G. Elias.)...

The first material known as rubber was a polyisoprene produced from latex extracted from Hevea brasiliensis trees. Currently latex world production is concentrated in three areas Asia (93,3%), Africa (4,5%) and Latin America (2,2%). In Latin America the production reaches 195,000 tons, subdivided between Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico, and 54% of this production refers to Brazilian supply, with approximately 105 thousand tons, representing 1.2% of world production." ... 

---