PVC was discovered twice in19th century, once by Henry Victor Raignault in 1835 and once by Eugen Baumann in 1872. In both cases, the polymer appears in a vinyl chloride beaker placed in the sun and becomes a white solid. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian chemist Ivan Ostromislensky and German chemist Fritz Klatte tried to use PVC for commercial purposes at the same time, but the difficulty was how to process this hard and sometimes fragile polymer.
19 12 years, German Fritz Klatte synthesized PVC and applied for a patent in Germany, but a suitable product could not be developed before the patent expired.
1926, Waldo Semon of American B.F. Goodrich Company synthesized PVC and applied for a patent in the United States. Waldo Semon and B.F. Goodrich company developed a method of plasticizing PVC by adding various additives in 1926, which made it a more flexible and easy-to-process material and soon got a wide range of commercial applications.
It is found in 19 14 that organic peroxide can accelerate the polymerization of vinyl chloride. 193 1 year, the company adopts emulsion polymerization to realize the industrial production of PVC. In 1933, W.L. Simon proposed that soft PVC products could be processed by heating and mixing high boiling point solvent, triphenyl phosphate and PVC, which made a real breakthrough in the practical application of PVC. The suspension polymerization of vinyl chloride and the processing and application of PVC were almost simultaneously developed by Bremen Chemical Industry Company, Union Carbide Company and Gutteridge Chemical Company in 1936. In order to simplify the production process and reduce energy consumption, the French company Saint-Gobain 1956 developed bulk polymerization. 1983, the world total consumption was about 1 1. 1Mt, and the total production capacity was about17.6 mt; ; It is the second largest plastic variety after polyethylene production, accounting for about 15% of the total plastic production. The PVC production plant designed by China was put into trial production in Jinxi Chemical Plant in Liaoning Province in 1956, and the 3kt plant was officially industrialized in 1958, with an output of 530.9kt in 1984.
PVC was industrialized in the early 1930s. Since 1930s, for a long time, the output of PVC has been ranked first in the world's plastic consumption. In the late 1960s, polyethylene replaced polyvinyl chloride. Although PVC plastics are now relegated to the second place, the output still accounts for more than a quarter of the total plastic production.
Before the 1960s, the production of vinyl chloride monomer was mainly based on calcium carbide and acetylene, which consumed a lot of electricity and coke and had high cost. After the industrialization of ethylene oxychlorination to produce vinyl chloride in the early 1960s, countries turned to cheaper oil as raw materials. In addition, because a large part of raw materials (about 57% by weight) of PVC is an inevitable by-product of alkali industry, it is not only rich in raw materials, but also one of the very important products for developing chlor-alkali industry and balancing chlorine. Therefore, although the proportion of PVC in plastics has decreased, it still maintains a high growth rate.
PVC plastic products are widely used, but in the mid-1970s, people realized that the residual monomer vinyl chloride (VCM) in PVC resin and products is a serious carcinogen, which will undoubtedly affect the development of PVC to some extent. However, people have successfully reduced the residual VCM by automobile and other means, so that the VCM content in PVC resin is less than 10ppm, which meets the requirements of sanitary resin and expands the application scope of PVC. Even the VCM content in the resin can be less than 5ppm, and there is very little VCM left after processing. It is basically harmless to human body and can be used as food and drug packaging and children's toys.