POLYVINYL-CHLORIDE (PVC)

The technical and economic position of polyvinyl chloride has not lost any of its attractiveness over the past few years. The property profile of PVC, its price to performance ratio and, not least, its positive ecological profile compared with a large number of other materials underpin the market significance of this, the most versatile of plastics. Building up on its excellent basic properties of long life and corrosion resistance, modifications to give impact strength, increased heat resistance, migration-proof plasticised grades and easy-flow injection moulding compounds represent the state of the art in the processing of PVC as a thermoplastic. Special applications are focused on dry-blends, multi-phase systems, crosslinking, surface design, composites and semi-finished parts. The PVC pastes that are established in the flooring sector and in textile and paper coating are gaining increasing importance in a large number of special paste applications, employing a wide variety of processing techniques. These applications include underbody sealant, seam pastes and unsupported artificial leather for cars. With the development of the appropriate PVC paste types, used in combination with homopolymeric and copolymeric extender resins, it is now possible to achieve virtually any desired property profile in the PVC paste sector.