ENGINEERING AND PERFORMANCE PLASTICS, 2005-2015, RAPRA, VIENNA 2005

Françoise Pardos, Pardos Marketing, February 2006

End-uses and applications of engineering and specialty plastics

As shown on Table 3, the engineering plastics are mainly used in automotive and electrical industry in broad sense. The specialty plastics are primarily used in a wide range of very demanding industrial applications. There are few general consumer goods applications, except for PSU in medical applications, for POM in sports, pens and lighters, and PTFE for coating of pots and pans.

The trend is definitely towards more diversification in end-uses, although slowly, as the main limitation of engineering/specialty plastics is their price. They are used only when their higher performances are truly needed. Designers are increasingly aware of the price/performance ratio. This is why, even in electrical applications, some upgraded commodity plastics, are increasingly competing with the engineering plastics, through alloys and blends and enhancement of commodity polymers such as polypropylene or styrenics.

Table 3. Major end-uses of engineering and specialty plastics, in % of total tons, 2005 world estimates

 - means nil or negligible, or with not enough data to estimate reliably enough

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