Polycarbonate sheet market and application

Polycarbonate sheet market and application

1. Sheets for the construction industry

Polycarbonate sheet has good light transmittance, impact resistance, resistance to ultraviolet radiation, dimensional stability of the product, and good molding and processing performance, which makes it have obvious technical performance advantages over the traditional inorganic glass used in the construction industry. The weight of the polycarbonate sheet made by pressing or extrusion method is 50% of inorganic glass, the heat insulation performance is 25% higher than that of inorganic glass, and the impact strength is 250 times that of ordinary glass. It is dominant in the world's construction industry. About 1/3 are used for glass products such as window glass and commercial shop windows. In addition, panels made of polycarbonate with a marble appearance and a low-foaming wood appearance will also show their talents in the construction and furniture industries. For example, the roof of the Shanghai South Railway Station, the skylight of the Chongqing Olympic Stadium, the windows of the Argentine Intercity EMU... are all made of polycarbonate.

2. Auto parts

In today's pursuit of energy saving and high efficiency, light weight and safety are important goals pursued by the automobile manufacturing industry. Polycarbonate has good impact resistance, thermal distortion resistance, good weather resistance and high hardness. Therefore, it is suitable for the production of various parts of cars and light trucks. Its main application areas are concentrated in the manufacture of lighting systems, instrument panels, Heating plate, defroster, bumper made of polycarbonate alloy, etc. Especially in the automotive lighting system, making full use of the characteristics of easy forming and processing of polycarbonate, the head of the lamp, the connecting piece, the lamp body, etc. are all molded into the lens, the design flexibility is large, the processing is convenient, and the traditional glass manufacturing is solved. The technical difficulties of headlamps. In Western countries, the proportion of polycarbonate used in the electrical and electronic and automobile manufacturing industries is 40%-50%. At present, the proportion of China's use in this field is only about 10%. The electrical and electronic and automobile manufacturing industries are China's rapidly developing pillar industries. In the future, the demand for polycarbonate in these fields will be huge.

3. Medical equipment

Because polycarbonate products can withstand steam, cleaning agents, heating and high-dose radiation sterilization without yellowing and physical performance degradation, they are widely used in artificial kidney hemodialysis equipment, and other operations that need to be transparent and intuitive , And need to be repeatedly sterilized in medical equipment, such as the production of high-pressure syringes, surgical masks, disposable dental appliances, blood oxygenators, blood collection storage, blood separators, etc.

4. Aerospace

With the rapid development of aviation and aerospace technology, the requirements for various components in aircraft and spacecraft continue to increase, making the application of PCs in this field increasing. According to statistics, there are 2500 polycarbonate components used on a Boeing aircraft alone, and a single plane consumes about 2 tons of polycarbonate. On the spacecraft, hundreds of polycarbonate parts with different configurations and reinforced by glass fiber are used, as well as protective equipment for astronauts.

5. Packaging field

In recent years, a new growth point in the packaging field is various types of water storage bottles that can be repeatedly sterilized and used. Because polycarbonate products have the advantages of light weight, impact resistance, good transparency, no deformation and transparency when washed with hot water and corrosive solutions, at present, in some fields, polycarbonate bottles have completely replaced glass bottles. What must be mentioned is the polycarbonate baby bottle-because of its light weight and transparency, it was once all the rage in the market. However, since 1998, studies have shown that free bisphenol A in polycarbonate will precipitate at high temperatures, causing damage to the endocrine system of infants and young children, causing precocious puberty, decreased learning ability, obesity and other diseases. There are also people in the industry who hold a different attitude towards this, thinking that all the current data are derived from mice, and there is no human test data, and polycarbonate baby bottles have been widely used for many years and have not received any bad feedback results. However, be careful in all things. The EU has banned the production of polycarbonate baby bottles since March 2011; my country also requires that from June 1, 2011, the production of polycarbonate baby bottles and other BPA-containing baby bottles be banned; Since September 1, 2011, the import of polycarbonate baby bottles and other baby bottles containing BPA is prohibited. At the same time, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine also revoked the production licenses of all companies that use polycarbonate to produce baby bottles.

6. Electronic appliances

Because polycarbonate has good and constant electrical insulation in a wide range of temperature and humidity, it is an excellent insulating material, coupled with its good flame retardancy and dimensional stability, it has formed in the electronic and electrical industry Broad application areas. Polycarbonate resin is mainly used in the production of various food processing machinery, power tool housings, bodies, brackets, refrigerator freezer drawers and vacuum cleaner parts. Moreover, polycarbonate materials have also shown extremely high use value in the fields of computers, video recorders, and color TV sets that require high parts accuracy.

7. Optical lens

Polycarbonate occupies an extremely important position in the field of optical lenses due to its unique characteristics of high light transmittance, high refractive index, high impact resistance, dimensional stability and easy processing and molding. Optical lenses made of optical grade polycarbonate can not only be used to manufacture cameras, microscopes, telescopes and optical testing instruments, but also can be used to manufacture film projector lenses, copier lenses, infrared auto-focusing projector lenses, and laser beam printer lenses. As well as various prisms, polygon mirrors, etc., the application market is extremely broad. Another important application field of polycarbonate in optical lenses is as a lens material for children's glasses, sunglasses, safety glasses and adult glasses. In recent years, the average annual growth rate of polycarbonate consumption in the world's optical industry has remained above 20%, showing great market vitality.

8. Disc basic materials

As an audio-visual information storage medium, optical discs are another big market for polycarbonate applications. However, in recent years, due to the impact of the Internet, tablet computers, smart phones and other emerging media, the global optical disc market demand has shrunk sharply. The global copy volume of CD-type optical discs will drop to 17% of 2009, and DVD-type optical discs may drop to 2009. The growth rate of Blu-ray Disc production is also gradually slowing down. In the absence of new technological breakthroughs and the emergence of new consumer markets, the trend of shrinking demand in the optical disc copy market will continue.

9. LED lighting industry

In recent years, facing the global energy crisis, the LED industry has sprung up and is now widely used in lighting, display, backlighting and other industries. The application of LED lighting will gradually phase out incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps, which is of great significance for achieving energy saving and emission reduction and actively responding to global climate change. In 2013, the global LED lighting market was about 27 billion U.S. dollars, and the Chinese market in 2013 was also about 48 billion yuan. Because of its light weight, easy processing, high toughness, flame-retardant and heat-resistant properties, polycarbonate has become the primary choice for replacing glass materials in LED lighting.

2021-11-03