Plastic nowadays is obviously an important substance for us. A mix of plastic or just plastic and other materials is what many different packages contain. We use these products and several of them are made of party or even entirely out of plastics. There are different kinds of plastics and each of those plastics has several functions and capabilities.
Organic solids mixed together are what a plastic is in general and it can be formed into a specific shape. These solid objects can be a blend of synthetic or even be entirely synthetic and naturally occurring or semi-synthetic polymers. The majority of plastics are created by the use of synthetic polymers which were extracted from petrochemicals.
In several different ways, plastics are classified and this would include the polymerization process by which the plastic is created, the plastic’s processibility and the plastic’s chemical nature. Thermoplastic and thermoset plastic are the two categories in which plastic is categorized in terms of processibility.
These plastics have the word thermo in both of them which means that heat is applied to transform these plastics into products or packages. With a thermoplastic, the plastic item can be recycled, melted down and molded into a new product again and again. For the thermoset plastics though this is not the case because when these plastics are heated they undergo a chemical change which means they can’t be melted down or reused. Even though plastics are technically not able to be melted down reformed, some can be used again for other purposes. To produce asphalt, vulcanized rubber which is used for tires is shredded and that is used to produce that.
Plastics are further classified by their physical properties beyond those two basic classifications which might include factors such as density, resistance to chemicals, glass transition, temperature and tensile strength. Tensile strength is the maximum amount of stress that the plastic can withstand when you are stretching it without breaking. Basically the temperature at which a substance moves from a hard state into a molten state is the glass transition temperature where it can be molded.
Density in many ways refers to the overall strength, although technically this means the mass per unit volume. Take for instance polypropylene, which is used to make products such as yogurt cups. This has a lower density than acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, which is used to create products such as Lego bricks, some auto parts and a few musical instruments.
Resistance to chemicals is one very important classification that is mentioned above this. A bottle of bleach that you keep by your washing machine is a great example of that. The container which is the bottle of the bleach liquid is a type of thermoplastic that is highly resistant to chemicals. The resistance of the plastic to the bleach liquid is pretty high otherwise the bleach would melt through the plastic and leak from it. Bleach is known to burn the skin and eyes even though it is a helpful detergent product and it is also poisonous to any living creature so it should be contained safely. The yogurt cup that you use does not need to be resistant to chemicals or many other food products.
Lenna Stockwell enjoys blogging about how stuff is made. For further info about plastic thermoforming or to discover more about retail product packaging solutions, please go to the Indepak.com site today.