Solid growth on a global basis / Worldwide capacities come to 10m t/y / Asia dominates both production and consumption / Restructuring efforts across Europe make an impact/ Market players still face challenges

摘要

Historically, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer (ABS) is an engineering plastic. However, because of the enormous volumes involved and the highly competitive supplier market, many market players nowadays consider it to be a commodity and classify ABS together with PVC, PE, PP, PS and even PET as a standard thermoplastic. Developed in the United States in the 1950s and successfully converted to industrial production by Borg-Warner's Marbon division at the end of the decade, ABS quickly grew to become the biggest engineering plastic in terms of volume. The basic feedstocks for ABS copolymer are styrene (SM), butadiene (C4) and acrylonitrile (ACN), with the ratio of the ingredients varying according to the grade and synthesis process. As a rule of thumb, the ratio of the ABS components SM:ACN:C4 by volume would be in the region of 60:20:20 or 3:1:1.