Review of specialty PVC resins

World consumption of PVC was around 25 MM MT (55 billion pounds) in year 2001, second only to that of low density polyethylene. Only 10% of the PVC produced is classified as specialty PVC resins, while the other 90% is referred to as general purpose (GP) commodity resins. This paper tries to define what specialty PVC resins are, how they are produced, and their markets, applications, fabrication processes, and compounding as compared to those of GP resins.