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| Issue date:18/02/2008 |
| Source:China Plastic & Rubber Journal |
Reported by Adrian Chan
Edited by Wong Hok Tak
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| Plastics are gaining in popularity in home appliances. Pictured is the Tarsus Mycook food processor, which features a lightweight and robust pitcher lid made of Dupont's highly heat-resistant and food safe Zytel HTN PPA. |
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China has become one of the world's major producers of home appliances after more than a decade's development.
With an anticipated growth in the domestic consumption and exports of television sets, air conditioners and small appliances, and so on, in China, the country's home appliance industry would have a much greater demand on plastics, forecasted Miao Gen, Secretary General of Shanghai Household Electric Appliance Profession Association (SHEAPA), in a recent Chinaplas 2008 press conference held in Shanghai.
This, Mr Miao explained, will follow the increasing use of plastics in the production of home appliances. For instance, Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group (BSH) has developed a dishwasher with the inner barrel made of a kind of polypropylene composite that is performance and color stable under prolonged exposure of dishwasher detergents. In addition, further use of polypropylene in other inner parts of a dishwasher – such as hinges (made of steel presently) and racks (composed of a PVC-coated steel structure) – is expected.
In fact, polypropylene, as the lightest polymer that is also toxic-free, odorless and tasteless with a density as low as 0.90g/cm3 to 0.91g/cm3, has been increasingly demanded in China's home appliance industry since 1990's for the production of clothes washers, vacuum cleaners, electric fans and all kinds of small appliances, Mr Miao remarked. In particular, it is the most largely consumed in clothes washers, as its high thermal stability make it suitable for the drum, spinning tub, base, cover, impeller and operating panel.
Some manufacturers are also studying the feasibility of plastic doors for their refrigerator products, Mr Miao revealed. With respect to inner liners of refrigerators, there has already been a trend of change from being made of HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene) to being made of ABS, because the latter can make the liners as strong as HIPS does, but thinner, and usually cheaper as well. With pressure applied during the manufacturing process, the thermoplastic can yield higher precision, which is also needed by today's finer design of liners.
The need for making home appliances lighter and thinner, as well as reducing the costs, is driving the more use of plastics in the industry. Statistics reveal that in vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines, television sets, and air-conditioners, the percentage of plastics used has reached 60%, 38%, 34%, 23%, and 10% respectively. There have been all-plastic irons, all-plastic vacuum cleaners, and all-plastic clothes washers developed already.
Stricter environmental requirements
Another trend in China's home appliance industry, Mr Miao anticipated, is the stricter requirements of the plastic materials used following the enforcement of the RoHS (the Restrictions of the use of certain Hazardous Substances) directive in electrical and electronic equipment the EU, as well as that of similar regulations in the US, Japan and China.
Plastic recycling in home appliances
Furthermore, as it is peak time for home appliances to come to the end of their life in China, recycling of plastics in end-of-life home appliances has been important to both home appliance manufacturers and plastics suppliers. Mr Miao believed that advancements in plastic recycling technology would drive the development of the home appliance recycling industry in China.
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