SPECIALTY POLYMERIC BLENDS AND ALLOYS............Throughout the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s, the polymer industry kept busy inventing new polymer types – polyimides, polysulfones, thermoplastic elastomers, polyphenylene oxides, etc.  Beginning in the 1980’s, however, brand-new polymer categories were not so easily discovered, and the polymer chemists turned instead toward hybridization, blending and alloying the polymers at hand.  The research and development effort to commercialize a blend or an alloy, though significant, is probably somewhat less than that for bringing to the market an entirely new polymer species.  Also, in many cases, the knowledge accumulated on blend component polymers helps the researcher to predict with reasonable probability the properties of the blend.     

As a result of these activities, specialty blends and alloys of thermoplastic polymers and elastomers became a burgeoning, fast-growing, market in the 1980s.  Demand for these hybrids has been on the increase, especially in passenger cars, where plastics are replacing metals, as well as in business machine housings, electrical and mechanic-cal goods, etc.  Many companies have commercialized new grades, and new combinations and permutations of thermoplastic polymers abound.

Some of the subjects included in the report are:

            BLENDS AND ALLOYS

       COMPATILIZERS AND COMPATIBILIZING AGENTS

         NEW DEVELOPMENTS

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