Handbook of Plasticizers

Handbook of Plasticizers, Fourth Edition is an essential professional reference, providing information that enables R&D scientists, production chemists, and engineers the information they need to use plasticizers more effectively, and to avoid certain plasticizers in applications where they may cause health or material durability problems. The book provides a comprehensive review of the current literature as well as cutting-edge details on plasticizers obtained from renewable resources.

The book specifies the typical properties of plasticizers belonging to one of thirty-one groups, including the expected properties in a given group. The mechanisms of plasticizers, plasticization production steps, and their material behavior in plasticized systems are outlined, and theoretical background is provided throughout in order to help understanding of practical observations and provide guidance to the methods of material improvement. Other chapters cover the effects on the physical and mechanical properties of plasticized materials, their use in polymers, processing defects formation and elimination with plasticizers, influence of rheological changes on the process, equipment maintenance, and more.

The Fourth edition includes expanded material on odors in plastics, covering odor formation, methods to prevent odors in various plastic materials, the testing of odor changes, and the relationship between odor and toxicity. This section also provides a comprehensive list of methods for removal of unwanted odors from plastic materials.