Heat Stabilizers for PVC: A complete guide-1

Polyvinyl Chloride a.k.a. PVC, a long chain of vinyl chloride, finds numerous applications in commercial, industrial, and medical products. Before exploring the world of heat stabilizers used for PVC, let's start with the basics of this resourceful polymer.

What is PVC?

Polyvinyl chloride or PVC is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic plastic polymer; the first two being polyethylene and polypropylene. Discovered by a German chemist, Eugen Baumann in 1872, he observed that some vinyl chloride in a flask had started to polymerize in a white solid during exposure to the sun. However, the use of PVC in commercial products became more widespread only after American inventor Waldo Semon and the B.F. Goodrich Company, in 1926 successfully developed a system to plasticize PVC by blending it with numerous additives.

But why was there a need for additives?

Even though Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is one of the most commercial polymers, it is thermally unstable at processing temperatures. The incorporation of additives increases its thermal stability, makes it more flexible and a more easily processable material.

For PVC, the thermal decomposition temperature is lower than the processing temperature, the use of proper heat stabilizers is essential during its processing and as well as afterwards.

Stabilizers are special types of additives assimilated into plastics to afford protection against heat, UV and mechanical degradation of the polymer during both processing and use. PVC has the most requirement of heat stabilizers and hence it is observed that heat stabilizers find major applications in the PVC industry. Heat stabilizers are commonly used to secure the PVC products at all stages by improving resistance at high temperatures.