ADI Chemical Market Resources (ADI CMR) recently presented a webinar reviewing key trends and sharing an outlook for the global chemical industry. Uday Turaga shared research and insights from theADI CMR team’s research and consulting work. Since ADI’s acquisition of Chemical Market Resources in late 2017, ADI CMR has completed more than 25 projects across…
Super-hard materials are materials above a certain level of hardness beyond which traditional methods of component manufacturing such as milling and turning cannot be utilized. Some examples of these super-hard materials are tungsten carbide, diamond, silicon carbide, silicon nitride, and high-speed steel. Hardness and toughness are often seen as similar material properties but they are…
Global demand for polyolefins increased annually at 3.7%, from 68 million metric tons per year (MMtpy) in 1997 to 160 MMtpy in 2017. This growth has been accompanied by a significant geographical shift in demand, which has gone from North America and Europe constituting over 50% global demand to China and Asia-pacific being the major…
There are two forms of detergents that dominate the global laundry market – liquid and powder detergents. Liquid detergents are more effective for lifting out everyday stains and ground-in dirt while powder detergents are better with food, greasy, or oily stains. While liquid detergents are mostly common in the U.S., powder detergents are popular elsewhere…
The automotive industry is the second largest consumer of polyolefins and their use in vehicles is estimated to grow annually at nearly 9% over the next five years. Polypropylene (PP), polyolefin elastomers (POE), and some mineral fillers such as talc, calcium carbonates, and silicates are the key components of several automotive parts. Polypropylene is the…
Silicone elastomers, sometimes incorrectly known as silicone rubbers, are silicon-based polymers that have been vulcanized. They offer unique performance characteristics such as serviceability over a wide temperature range of -150°F to above +500°F and are readily available in a variety of forms such as solids, open cell foams, closed cell sponges, and are thermally and…
As discussed last month, polymers are increasingly designed keeping very specific properties in mind. Thus, multi-layered polymers are often required when multiple properties are needed in a single structure. Depending on the type of polymer used for the targeted properties, tie layer resins are often required to produce these multi-layered structures. Exhibit 1 below shows…
Polymers are increasingly being designed keeping very specific properties in mind. This often requires multi-layered polymers when multiple properties are needed in a single structure. Depending on the characteristics desired, the final structure can include anywhere from three to 11 layers. Multi-layered structures using different resins are difficult to manufacture especially when two dissimilar layers,…
Growing concerns from environmentalist consumers, and businesses, China’s ban on imported recyclables, and a lack of a domestic market for U.S. recyclables are driving efforts to reduce plastic waste. Plastics have been an essential component of our daily lives for many years as they are used in countless items we use everyday. Applications and top…
Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastic and reprocessing the material into useful products. According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only 10% of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream is being recycled, and the rest is being accumulated in landfills or dumped into the natural environment as litter. There are two basic approaches to…