Plastics & Rubber

Plastic Additives basics

Plastic additives make plastics possible. They play a key factor in enabling thermoplastics, thermosets and elastomers to meet service life expectations in many applications. Wherever you find plastics, the additives make them more durable, resistant to weathering, lightweight, and more versatile.

While our experts are ready to answer your questions, you can find the basics below. Generally plastic additives can be organized into the following three categories:

Antioxidants

Antioxidants protect polymers from oxidation, or damage from heat and oxygen, during manufacture, processing, and use. They also improve the processing of the material, which helps reduce waste and energy consumption

Light Stabilizers

Light stabilizers are designed to protect polymers from photooxidation induced by the intense UV energy coming from the sun. Some additives absorb these energy packets, which means that the polymer itself doesn’t have to, other scavenge radicals generated by the high energy packets, preventing deterioration of the polymer.

Functional additives

Functional additives influence specific properties of the final application by giving new characteristics whilst increasing value.

Finally, in response to a growing demand for circular plastics, there are many additives to improve the processing, performance, and quantity of recycled plastics. This market will continue to change and improve, as we advance the plastics circular economy.