ASA resin demand will reach 156,000 tons, how to fill the gap between supply and demand?

Compared with ABS, due to the bring in of acrylic rubber without double bonds, the weather resistance of ASA is greatly improved and has been more widely used in the automobile, building materials, electronic appliances (gas) and other fields, the replacement of ABS special purpose specification direction is promising in the future. At present, due to the insufficient supply of ASA high rubber powder in China, production and consumption are limited. It is very important to develop advanced high rubber powder preparation technology and supporting advanced production equipment.

Performance comparison of ABS and ASA ABS resin is acrylonitrile-butadiene styrene copolymer, with good surface gloss, heat and chemical resistance, impact resistance and good processing properties, mainly used in household appliances, electronic and electrical, transportation (automobile) and other terminal fields. ABS is one of the largest thermoplastics in the market, with a global production capacity of 11.93 million tons/year and and domestic production capacity of 4.11 million tons/year in 2019.

ABS has poor weather resistance. Since the grafted butadioene rubber structure contains unsaturated carbon-carbon double bonds, it is easy to be degraded under the action of UV light, and the impact strength decreases by half after six months outdoors, which has become the biggest restriction factor for the wider application of ABS.

ASA resin is acrylonitrile-styrene-acrylate copolymer, the main production process is to mix ASA high rubber powder and SAN resin (styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer). For ABS resin and ASA resin, the continuous phase is SAN, and the main difference is that the rubber grafted in the dispersed phase. Due to the introduction of acrylic rubber without double bonds, the weather resistance of ASA resin is about 10 times higher than that of ABS resin, and its mechanical properties, processing properties, electrical insulation, chemical resistance are similar with ABS resin. ASA resin has been widely used in many automotive interior and exterior decoration, building materials, electronics and electrical fields.