Over 2.5 million water bottles are thrown away every HOUR in
United States alone and this statistics doesn’t include thousands of other
plastic products that are manufactured, used and discarded at the same time. If
these calculation results are consolidated, the plastic waste would be beyond
60 billion tons every year.
These numbers are hindering the plastics industry business
majorly. Because the disadvantages of the plastic products are comprehensive at
individual, global, universal and environmental level, as a major part of this
material products are landfilled or burned.
By the time these are land filled or burned or recycled, they
out gasses toxics into the environment. To minimize these disadvantages,
billions of money is invested in research & development (R&D) by
developed Nations and Institutions on outgassing, leaching, and extraction
parameters. In order to take the advantage of the scenario, the industry need
to adapt the ways to reduce the outgassing in the plastic products, since the
reduction in plastic usage is merely possible.
Recent developments in plastic industry include generating
electricity from transparent material, reusable & recyclable plastics, etc.
A lot of changes in Plastic Industry policies are brought up to reduce the
green house gasses and to encourage entrepreneurs to be more sustainable
oriented, while being profit oriented.
One of the most recent outbursts of R&D result is the “New
Plastic Technology” that limits toxic outgassing. It is a method to avoid the
harmful outgassing of chemicals like plasticizers, formaldehyde and others from
plastics that cause health problems to humans. So, the new technology is a way
to lead phthalate and other acids permanently bond & chemically attach to the
internal structure of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). As a result plasticizers will
not migrate and keeps the plastic as it is, as actually intended.
There is an overwhelming demand for these low outgassing
concepts in plastics from all industrial purposes to consumer goods. Aerospace
and aircraft industry is in requirement of this concept to reduce fogging and
other problems associated from mobile silicone oils in the cured silicone
elastomer. While, the silicone oils are created at manufacturing phase of the
silicone polymer and can be removed through various degrees of processing.
NuSil Technology offers customized concepts, solutions and
products to industry based on the client’s requirement specifications. Their
solutions are giving excellent compatibility utility in the extreme
environments of the aircraft industry, which can maintain elastic properties
without degradation under continuous high temperature exposure of up to 250 °C.
The Ultra Low Outgassing silicones are also excellent for
reducing the risk of contamination to increase the operation life in sensitive
electronics and optical applications. So, engineers of the sensitive optical
applications are demanding the lowest possible outgassing material to limit the
risk of creating any contamination. This is required at conditions like:
● » Applications that
are sensitive to contamination
● » Applications
where repair or rework is almost impossible
● » Laser modules
● » Surface Acoustic
Wave Guides
● » Hermitically
Sealed Packages
● » In MEM type
applications
The silicones can be incorporated with iron oxide fillers that
can impart increased thermal stability at high temperatures. Alternatively the
same silicones can also be modified for low outgassing or fuel resistance to
handle the rigorous demands of aerospace and aircraft technologies.
Fiber Optic Industry is another industry that is conceptualizing
to afford low outgassing components. Since this also includes photonics,
telecommunications or optical components, the trend is slowly spreading to all
industries.
Epoxy Technology’s adhesives are tested in accordance with
Telcordia GR 1221 that gives “Generic Reliability Assurance Requirement for
Passive Optical Components” and helps to assure the practical, useful life for
certain manufactured devices relating to long term performance.
The outgassing plastic products can have devastating affects on
the long term reliability and these can be solved with the application of the
low outgassing solutions. But the question arises at mass plastic usage in
infrastructure and industrial purposes whose affordability of these solutions
is predominantly low when compared to Aerospace and Aircraft Industries.
However, this is a potential option for the plastics industry to
adapt and work against the environmental controversies it is facing than any
other industry and to attract the back the market that has migrated to non
plastic options.