Published May 1973
This report reviews various compounds that protect polymers against deterioration, Polymers are exposed to many degradative effects of which heat, oxygen, ozone, and ultraviolet light are the most important. The chemical additives that counteract the above effects are antioxidants, antiozonants, and ultraviolet stabilizers. The terms antioxidants and antiozonants are more often used in the rubber industry, whereas the term stabilizer is more often encountered in the plastics industry. The scope of this report is limited to polymers and elastomers and specifically excludes applications such as gasoline, food, and lubricants,
The emphasis is on antioxidants used for rubber because this is the largest volume market. Consequently, most of the cost estimates were developed for rubber antioxidants. Since antioxidants are commonly produced in multiproduct plants, the plant capacities were selected to be sufficiently large to represent annualized outputs in the blocked-out production of several antioxidants in the same plant. No specific product slates were selected, because any such selection would be highly speculative, The economics were also developed for certain precursors--chloronitrobenzene, para-phenylenediamine, and para-aminophenol.
