where to buy plasticizer? how plasticizer works?
What is a plasticizer?
Plasticizer is a kind of polymer material additives widely used in industrial production line, also known as plasticizer. Through the use of plasticizers can improve the performance of polymer materials, thereby reducing production costs and achieving the purpose of improving production efficiency. Plasticizers as a total class of chemical additives, are widely used in plastic products, concrete, plaster, cement, gypsum, cosmetics and cleaning agents and other materials.
There are many types of plasticizers, including phthalate esters, aliphatic dibasic acid esters, fatty acid esters, phenyl polyacid esters, polyol esters, epoxy hydrocarbons, alkyl sulfonates, etc. Narrowly defined plasticizers mainly refer to phthalate esters, a collective name for about 30 esters formed from phthalic acid, which is currently the main body of plasticizers.
Plasticizers can be used legally in industry by weakening the secondary bonds between resin molecules, increasing the mobility of resin molecular bonds, reducing the crystallinity of resin molecules, and increasing the plasticity of resin molecules, thus making the material more flexible and easy to process. We can’t live without it in a variety of products in various industries.
Why do we need plasticizers?
There is an interaction between the linear macromolecules of thermoplastics, and this physical force comes from van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonds, the size of which is related to the structure of the polymer. In general, the forces are greater for polar molecules than for non-polar molecules. The intermolecular forces not only give the polymer a certain mechanical strength, but also affect many properties such as its molding and processing.
The essence of thermoplastic resin processing is to increase the activity of polymer molecules and weaken the intermolecular forces by heating, thus making it plastic. However, difficulties are often encountered with polymers that are highly polar, have high intermolecular forces, and are unstable to heat.
For example, PVC is a strongly polar polymer with strong intermolecular forces and needs to be heated to a certain temperature (above 160°C) to show plasticity, but the polymer is extremely sensitive to heat and starts to undergo severe thermal decomposition when heated to 130-140°C, turning brown or black. Due to the strong intermolecular forces of PVC, its products become hard and lack elasticity and flexibility.
Mechanism of action of plasticizers
The mechanism of action of plasticizers is to weaken the intermolecular forces of the polymer, thus reducing the softening temperature, melting temperature and glass transition temperature, reducing the viscosity of the melt, increasing its fluidity, and improving the processability of the polymer and the flexibility of the product. It is generally believed that the plasticizer is inserted between the polymer macromolecules and weakens the intermolecular action.
There are three specific ways.
(1) Isolation: Plasticizers are inserted between the macromolecules, increasing the distance between them and thus weakening the intermolecular forces, thus explaining the plasticizing effect of non-polar plasticizers added to non-polar polymers.
(2) Shielding: The non-polar part of the plasticizer shields the polar group of the polymer, so that the polar group of the adjacent polymer molecules does not interact.
(3) Coupling: The polar group of the plasticizer couples with the polar group of the polymer molecule to break the polar connection between the original polymer molecules, thus weakening their effect.
What are the uses of plasticizers?
Plasticizers in plastic products, rubber, plastic film, nano-materials, cleaning agents, cosmetics, aviation, aerospace, food hygiene, coatings and adhesives, textile printing and dyeing, paper, ink, polymer materials, chemical materials, automotive manufacturing, electronics and electrical appliances, and many other industries have quite common applications.
1、Concrete applications
Plasticizers can reduce the water content of concrete without affecting its processability, while improving the strength of concrete. High-strength concrete can not be too much water content, so the production of concrete will often use plasticizers, also known as water-reducing agents.
2, gypsum drywall applications
Plasticizers are also known as dispersants in the use of gypsum drywall, which can improve the processability of gypsum before it sets. Adding plasticizer when the water content is low can improve its processability, but it should not be added in excess, otherwise it will have a slow-setting effect and make the dry wall of gypsum less strong.
3、Energy-containing materials application
Energy-containing materials and pyrotechnic agents generally use plasticizers, which can improve the physical properties of the propellant itself or its binder on the one hand, and can also be used as auxiliary fuel to enhance the propulsive force (i.e., specific impulse) provided by the unit mass of fuel. Plasticizers are particularly needed in solid rocket propellants and smokeless powders to improve physical properties or enhance specific impulse. The advantage of plasticizers that can enhance specific impulse is that they can reduce the mass of the propellant, increase the rocket load or enhance its maximum speed.
4、Food packaging
In our daily use of PVC cling film, there are a large number of plasticizers can be used to make the PVC material soft and increase viscosity, suitable for fresh food packaging and better quality.
5、Plastic toys
In the PVC manufacturing of children’s toys also have plasticizers, the European Union has specified plastic toys in the content of plasticizers need to be below 0.1%.
6, cosmetics
Women often use perfume, nail polish and other cosmetics also contain plasticizers. For example, in conventional nail polish and gel nail polish, in order to prevent nail polish cracking or chipping and add plasticizers, not only to play a polishing role, but also to help increase the flexibility of nail polish.
This article is written by longchang chemical, please indicate the source when reprinting.
Flame retardant plasticizers of the same series
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| Lcflex® DEP | Diethyl phthalate | CAS 84-66-2 |
| Lcflex® TEC | triethyl citrate | CAS 77-93-0 |
| Lcflex® DOA | Dioctyl adipate | CAS 123-79-5 |
| Lcflex® DOS | SEBACIC ACID DI-N-OCTYL ESTER | CAS 2432-87-3 |
| Lcflex® DINP | Diisononyl Phthalate | CAS 28553-12-0/685 15-48-0 |
| Lcflex® TMP | Trimethylolpropane | CAS 77-99-6 |
| Lcflex® TEP | Triethyl phosphate | CAS 78-40-0 |
| Lcflex® TOTM | Trioctyl trimellitate | CAS 3319-31-1 |
| Lcflex® BBP | Bio-based plasticizers, High-efficiency plasticizer | |
| Lcflex® TMP | Trimethylol propane | CAS 77-99-6 |
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