We use PVC products daily. What kind of substance is this?

It must be said that modern life would be very uncomfortable without PVC. What is this for a modern economy? Details of PVC today are up to 15 kilograms from the total mass of the average European car, this material is involved in the production of consumer goods (balls, clothes, shoes, furniture, floor coverings, credit cards, etc.).

Medicine has used PVC for more than half a century. What it is, you can see by contacting numerous disposable equipment. Here you can find packing for tablets, tires, surgical gloves, catheters, feeding devices, blood containers. This material is cheap, successfully replaces rubber and glass, it is easy to sterilize, can be used inside the human body.

If we look at the things that are in our dwelling, then many of them are also made of PVC. What can it be? Polyvinylchloride often becomes the basis of electrical insulation, pipes, window profiles, children's toys, packaging materials, mobile phones, plastic bottles, tubes for toothpaste and much more.

What determines such a wide distribution of PVC? What is this from the chemical point of view? By its formula (-CH2-CHCl-) to the power of n (degree of polymerization), PVC is a synthetic polymer that is basic and is produced from chlorine and oil (57 and 43 percent, respectively). Production processes are less than half dependent on the supply of petroleum products, which makes the release of this material profitable, and its price is low.

Polyvinyl chloride in its appearance is a white powdery substance with good dielectric properties. It has no smell and taste, is insoluble in water, resistant to oxidation, poorly lit (due to chlorine in the composition), resistant to acids, mineral oils, alkalis, alcohols. When heated to 100 degrees C, the substance decomposes with the liberation of hydrogen chloride.

The production of PVC begins with the extraction of chlorine chloride from the solution (by electric shock). In parallel, ethylene is extracted from the oil (a procedure called cracking). After that, chlorine and ethylene are combined to give ethylene dichloride. In turn, vinyl chloride (monomer) is created from the dichloride, which then turns into the desired substance during the polymerization. Various components are added to it, allowing to obtain a finished product with some or other properties for the relevant industry.

PVC manufacturers use three basic methods for the polymerization of monomers: block, suspension and emulsion. In this case, suspensions are used to produce soft, semi-rigid and rigid plastics, and emulsions for soft products obtained through plastisols. Depending on the absence or presence of plasticizers in the composition, an unplasticized and plasticized material is produced accordingly. The former is less resistant to low temperatures (down to minus 15 degrees Celsius), while the latter can withstand cooling to -60 degrees. Today, the most urgent problem associated with these substances is their collection and disposal.