Plasticizing Agents Advantage Plasticizer in plastics have specific purposes - usually to render the plastic soft and flexible,

when it would otherwise be hard and more brittle, in other words, a material of lower molecular weight added to a polymer to separate the molecular chains. There are hundreds of plasticizers (check out Merck's website). The plasticizers in liquid form are generally somewhat like turpentine or paint thinner in consistency. The can cause plastic to swell and become flexible in this way. Plasticizers (because they are a liquid) can also evaporate. This is what happens to cheap vinyl over the years (gets brittle and cracks). Your car upholstery needs to survive a 250F environment and not lose flexibility, so they use more expensive plasticizers that won't evaporate so easily. Armorall is a cheap plasticizer that, while softening your car's vinyl, will also evaporate all over the inside of your windshield when it gets hot. Armorall also has poor soapy water resistance and will wash out. There is a difference between a plasticizer and a 'slip agent' added to the plastic. Slip agents are added to plastics to help forming during extrusion (such as blown films to make polyethylene baggies). Without the slip agents, the plastic would rupture before being blown into a bubble. Plasticizers for concrete are added to improve workability without compromising the strength very much. Disadvantage "The material for interior components contains volatile ingredients." "The material for interior components contains ingredients which react with each other, producing volatile components." "Plasticizer-induced volatile haze in paint coat" "Plasticizer migration" "Interlayer adhesion failure" While some polymers, like rubber, are naturally flexible, others, such as lignin or cellulose nitrate, are comparatively rigid and cannot be softened by exposure to nonsolvent materials. For this reason, plasticizing compounds may be added to a polymer to reduce its stiffness and increase its formability.Plasticizers collect into groups of

molecules between different polymer chains without altering the polymers volume. The result is less constrained polymer chain movement, as signaled by a rising dielectric constant. Plasticizers should generally have a solubility level close to that of the polymer itself, and multiple plasticizing additives can be used in a single mixture as long as they are compatible with each other and the polymer. When a plasticizer, such as dioctyl phthalate, is introduced to a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) polymer, it lowers its melt viscosity and increases its light stability. It provides resistance to oxidizing acids, but also makes the polymer more vulnerable to fungal contaminants and corrosives.

Antistatic Agent An antistatic agent is a compound used for treatment of materials or their surfaces in order to reduce or eliminate buildup of static electricity generally caused by the triboelectric effect. Its role is to make the surface or the material itself slightly conductive, either by being conductive itself, or by absorbing moisture from the air, so some humectants can be used. The molecules of an antistatic agent often have both hydrophilic and hydrophobic areas, similar to those of a surfactant; the hydrophobic side interacts with the surface of the material, while the hydrophilic side interacts with the air moisture and binds the water molecules. Internal antistatic agents are designed to be mixed directly into the material, external antistatic agents are applied to the surface. Common antistatic agents are based on longchain aliphatic amines (optionally ethoxylated) and amides, quaternary ammonium salts (e.g., behentrimonium chloride or cocamidopropyl betaine),esters of phosphoric acid, polyethylene glycol esters, or polyols. Indium tin oxide can be used as transparent antistatic coating of windows. It is also possible to use conductive polymers, likePEDOT:PSS and conducting polymer nanofibers, particularly polyaniline nanofibers. In general these systems are not very durable for coating, especially antimony tin oxide is used for durable systems, often in its nano form, its is then formulated to a final coating. Antistatic agents are also added to some military jet fuels, to impart electrical conductivity to them and avoid buildup of static charge that could lead to sparks igniting fuel vapors. Stadis 450 is the agent added to some distillate fuels, commercial jet fuels, and to the military JP-8. Stadis 425 is a similar compound, for use in distillate fuels. Statsafe products are used in non-fuel applications.

Fillers

Fillers are particles added to material (plastics, composite material, concrete) to lower the consumption of more expensive binder material or to better some properties of the mixtured material. Worldwide more than 53 million tons of fillers with a total sum of approximately EUR16 billion are used every year in different application areas, such as paper, plastics, rubber, paints, coatings, adhesives and sealants. As such, fillers, produced by more than 700 companies, rank among the world's major raw materials and are contained in a variety of goods for daily consumer needs.[1] Types of fillers[edit source | editbeta] Formerly, fillers were used predominantly to cheapen end products, in which case they are called extenders. Among the 21 most important fillers, calcium carbonate holds the largest market volume and is mainly used in the plastics sector.[2] While the plastic industry mostly consumes ground calcium carbonate the paper industry primarily uses precipitated calcium carbonate that is derived from natural minerals.wood flour and saw dust is used as filler in thermosetting plastic In some cases, fillers also enhance properties of the products, e.g. in composites. In such cases, a beneficial chemical interaction develops between the host material and the fillier. As a result, a number of optimized types of fillers, nano-fillers or surface treated goods have been developed.

Flame retardants Flame retardancy of polymeric materials is conducted to provide fire protection to flammable consumer goods, as well as to mitigate fire growth in a wide range of fires. This paper is a general overview of commercial flame retardant technology. It covers the drivers behind why flame retardants are used today, the current technologies in use, how they are applied, and where the field of flame retardant research is headed. The paper is not a full review of the technology, but rather a general overview of this entire field of applied science and is designed to get the reader started on the fundamentals behind this technology. This paper is based upon presentations given by the authors in late 2009 at the Flame Retardants and Fire Fighters meeting held at NIST. Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.