What are the applications of polycarbonate (PC)?
It's hard to imagine that many things in life are actually made of polycarbonate.
What is polycarbonate? Simply put, polycarbonate is an engineering plastic that combines multiple excellent properties. With over 60 years of development history, it has been widely used in various fields of daily life, and more and more people are experiencing the convenience and comfort that PC materials bring us. It is a high-performance thermoplastic engineering plastic that combines many excellent characteristics such as transparency, durability, resistance to breakage, heat resistance, and flame retardancy. It is one of the five major engineering plastics. Due to the unique structure of polycarbonate, it has become the fastest-growing general-purpose engineering plastic among the five major engineering plastics. Currently, the global production capacity exceeds 5 million tons.
PC materials are widely used and can be processed through injection molding, extrusion, and other processes. There are various products with different applications. Let's take a detailed look at the 8 mainstream applications of PC materials currently available:
1、 Automotive Parts
PC materials have the advantages of transparency, good impact resistance, and good dimensional stability, and are widely used in the automotive industry. For example, car sunroofs, headlights, etc. With the rapid development of the automotive industry, the proportion of PC materials used in the automotive industry will gradually increase. The design is flexible and easy to process, solving the technical difficulties of traditional glass manufacturing headlights. At present, the usage rate of polycarbonate in this field in China is only about 10%. The electronic and electrical industry, as well as the automotive manufacturing industry, are the pillar industries of China's rapid development. In the future, the demand for polycarbonate in these fields will be huge.
2、 Building materials
PC solid sheets have been continuously applied in large buildings in recent years, such as the Pantanal Stadium in Brazil and the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, due to their excellent dimensional stability, impact resistance, thermal insulation, transparency, and aging resistance. It is predicted that in the future, there will be more and more buildings using this PC material as roofs, and the proportion of buildings will also increase. In addition, in recent years, PC solid sheets have been widely used in various shapes of large-area daylighting roofs, stair guardrails, and high-rise building daylighting facilities. From public places such as football fields and waiting halls to private villas and residences, transparent PC sheet ceiling roofs not only give people a comfortable and beautiful feeling, but also save energy.
3、 Electronic appliances
PC materials have good impact resistance, electrical insulation, and easy dyeing characteristics, and are commonly used in the field of electronic appliances, such as mobile phone cameras, laptop cases, appliance cases, and wireless chargers. It is expected that the proportion of applications in this area will not fluctuate significantly in the future.
4、 Medical materials
Due to their ability to withstand steam, cleaning agents, heating, and high-dose radiation disinfection without yellowing or physical performance degradation, polycarbonate products are widely used in artificial kidney hemodialysis equipment, as well as other medical devices that require transparent and intuitive operation and repeated disinfection, such as high-pressure injectors, surgical masks, disposable dental appliances, blood oxygenators, blood collection and storage devices, blood separators, etc. It is expected that the proportion of applications in this area will increase in the future.
5、 LED lighting
After special modification, the PC material's ability to diffuse light will be greatly improved, and its application in the LED field can save energy consumption. In future development, energy conservation will be the main focus, and the proportion of this aspect should gradually increase. The lightweight, easy to process, high toughness, flame retardancy, heat resistance, and other properties of polycarbonate make it the primary choice for replacing glass materials in LED lighting.
6、 Security protection
Protective goggles made of non PC materials may interfere with human visual color, causing the protected person to have difficulty distinguishing colors in certain special situations and requiring removal of the protective equipment, which may lead to accidents. However, PC materials have high transparency, good impact resistance, and are not easily broken, making them suitable for safety protection fields such as welding goggles and fire helmet windows. It is expected that the proportion of applications in this area will not fluctuate significantly in the future.
7、 Food contact
The use temperature of PC material can reach around 120 ℃, and it will not release bisphenol A within the range of daily food contact, so it can be used with confidence. Such as high-end tableware, water dispenser buckets, and baby bottles. It is expected that the proportion of applications in this area will not fluctuate significantly in the future. It must be mentioned that polycarbonate baby bottles were once popular in the market due to their lightweight and transparency.
8、 DVD and VCD
In the past few years, when the DVD and VCD industries were prevalent, PC materials were mostly used to manufacture optical discs. With the development of the times, the use of optical discs has become increasingly rare, and the application of PC materials in this area will also decrease year by year in the future. With the emergence of the first high-pressure resistant PC injection, the application field of PC has become even broader. PC can be used to make an oxygenator shell for heart bypass surgery. PC is also used as a blood storage tank and filter housing during kidney dialysis, and its high transparency ensures rapid inspection of blood circulation, making dialysis simple and practical.
Since April 2009, the Republic of South Africa has issued a new passport to nearly 49 million residents, made of polycarbonate film produced by Bayer MaterialScience. This measure is aimed at improving the safety of the 2010 FIFA World Cup held in the country. In addition, some new fields such as self illuminating systems at the bottom of swimming pools, solar energy harvesting systems, high-definition large TV screens, and chip marked fibers in textiles that can recognize fabric materials cannot do without the presence of PC materials. PC products are making contributions to various industries, and their application potential will be further developed.