Masterbatches…The Current Buzzword in Plastic Industry

I find this masterbatches thing quite fascinating. Have you ever thought how the plastic which we use in our day to day life gets its color from? It is masterbatches which imparts color to the plastics. As a result of exploding demand for plastic, the demand for color masterbatches is sky rocketing.

My research and the people at RPIndustries (the leading additive masterbatches exporter and manufacturing company where I dug info for my school magazine article) are telling me that there is a huge growing potential of masterbatch business in Asia. The demand has grown from just under 90,000 tons in 1990 to nearly half a million tons in 2004.

There are many factors responsible for its growing use. Many plastics processors in Asia are supplying to Western or Japanese OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) or the export markets in West who have a very specific requirement and demand in terms of color match and performance. They manufacture and supply masterbatches keeping in mind the standards and quality that these markets demand.

Nowadays there is a wide variety of colors to choose from. The color masterbatches manufacturers keep a record of every tiny little detail of the compositions of masterbatches and processing conditions. This helps in reproducing the same masterbatches at anytime in future without any deviation in color shades or other properties.

Not just color masterbatches but demand for additive masterbatches is also on the rise. This is mainly due to increasing use of color and special effects to differentiate products. Plus, the requirement for improving performance criteria from polymer materials in terms of features such as UV stabilization, flame retardancy, etc., has also been growing rapidly. Ultra violet masterbatch demand is also very high.

This brings us to the end of the series. I hope it is of any use to you people. At least it gave me a chance to revise and share with you all the amazing stuff I learnt about this technology, about which honestly, I had no clue earlier..