Thermoplastics major markets

Practically only thermoplastics go through extruders no major markets have been developed to date for extruded thermosets. 

Fig. 1. US total sales and captive use of selected thermoplastic resins by major market for 2001. Major market volumes are derived from plastic resins sales and captive use data as compiled by VERIS Consulting, LLC and reported by the American Plastics Council s Plastic Industry Producers Statistics Group. Selected thermoplastics are low-density polyethylene, linear low-density polyethylene, high-density polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, polyvinyl chloride, thermoplastic polyester, engineering resins, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, styrene-acrylonitrile, other styrenics, polystyrene, and styrene butadiene latexes. (Data from ref. 25.)...

Total Sales Captive Use of Selected Thermoplastic Resins by Major Market, 2000-2004 (millions of pounds diy weight basis)... 

If starch is modified by partially fermenting it, or esterifying or etherification, the resulting material can be extruded by adding plasticizers. Starch-based plastics are readily biodegraded. In most cases, the polymers are also water-soluble. Several suppliers now offer thermoplastic starch. Major markets include soluble films for industrial packaging, films for bags and sacks, and loose fill. 

American Chemistry Council, 2013 Sales and Captive Use by Major Market Distribution for Thermoplastic Resins, March (2014), http //www.americanchemistry.coni/Jobs/EconomicStatistics/ Plastics-Statistics/Major-Market-Chartpdf, accessed 10/06/14... 

The major market destinations of plasdcs producdon are shown in Table 1.3. with a detailed breakdown of plastic uses in the packaging industry. Consumpdon of the six thermoplastics is led by the packaging industry (13,568 million pounds), accounting for 36% of the annual demand of the six thermoplasdcs (37,814 million pounds). 

As mentioned earlier, the majority of commodity thermoplastic products marketed today indude some inexpensive mineral fillers in their formulation for cost as well as performance improvement purposes. Even though nonwovens are in a similar cost sensitive market, products such as spunbond polypropylene have not followed this trend. Recent work by McAmish [23-25] has shown that certain grades of CaC03... 

Fig. 3.1 Major markets for thermoplastic resins. Data compiled by VERIS Consulting, LLC and reported on the web by APC s Plastics Industry Producers Statistics Group.

Literature estimates indicate that 10% or more of com-mereial PP is toughened by addition of 10-20% of EPR [19,148]. The major improvements are impact strength at room temperature and especially at low temperatures, environmental stress-crack resistance, and filler tolerance [18,19,108,143,148-151]. The major market is in the auto industry, while other uses include appliances, signs, sports equipment, and tool handles. At the other end of the scale, as noted earlier, addition of PP to EPR produces saturated thermoplastic elastomers. 

Thermoplastics are the primary plastic piping material in use today. They account for the largest percentage of plastic pipe in use and have the widest range of applications. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) makes up the majority of the thermoplastic piping market polyethylene is the second most popular. 

One of the major brakes on the expansion of the MCLCP market has been the relatively high cost of the polymers resulting from expensive feedstocks, and considerable research activity in industry has centred on attempting to lower monomer costs. In addition to this there has also been considerable effort blending MCLCPs with other thermoplastics with the objective of combining the optimum properties of both components while producing the most cost-effective material for a given application. An example of this is a MCLCP/nylon blend which exhibits a very low coefficient of thermal expansion. The blends area is likely to be an area of major market activity for MCLCPs in the future. 

Sales 6 Captive Use by Major Market Distribution for Thermoplastic Resins... 

Percentage distribution of thermoplastic resins sales and captive use by major market... 

This class of polyesters consists of four major commercial polymers and their copolymers, namely PET, PTT, PBT, and PEN (see Table 2.1). They compete for engineering thermoplastics, films, and fibers markets with other semicrystalline polymers, such as aliphatic polyamides, and for some other applications with amorphous engineering plastics such as polycarbonate. The syntheses of PET and PBT, detailed in numerous reviews and books,2-5 are described in Sections 23.2.2 and 2.3.2.1. 

Figure 2.7. Market shares of the eight major thermoplastic application sectors...

Table 2.10 displays the consumption of the major thermoplastics in 2005 for the three main geographic areas, together with market shares and average annual growth rates (AAGR). These identified thermoplastics represent roughly 70% of the overall global consumption of plastics. 

Winter sports represent a significant share of the sports and leisure market where the majority of commodity and engineering thermoplastics are used. 

EVOH is a speciality thermoplastic targeting specific applications and consumption is far smaller than for polyethylene and polypropylene. Worldwide production is estimated at 55 000 tonnes including 8000 tonnes consumed in Western Europe, that is to say, less than one thousandth of the total for plastics. Moreover, typical characteristics limit the applications and, consequently, relatively few grades are marketed, corresponding to the major applications ... 

Polypropylene fibers. A small part of the total fibers market (and therefore at the tail end of this section on fibers) is fiber grade polypropylene. The chemistry for polypropylene fibers is the same as for thermoplastics. The spinning mechanics are the same as that for nylon. Polypropylene fibers are particularly resistant to abrasion and chemicals, and they are lightweight. However, they dont take colors very well, and the materials have low softening points and low resilience (they wrinkle). The major applications for polypropylene fibers are carpet-face fiber and backing (because its tough) and rope (because it is strong and floats in water). 

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