Vinylidene chloride (VDC) copolymers are the best plastic packing material for air-blocking
and moisture blocking performances. They are not like polyvinyl alcohol, which has falling airblocking
features under moisture environment; nor like nylon film, which has less effective
moisture-blocking property with water absorption. At present, only a few large international
companies in the world are producing these product; they are Solvin (a joint venture of Solvay of
Belgium and BASF of Germany), Dow of the United States, and Asahi Chemical and Kureha of
Japan. Recently, a 10,000 t/yr VDC copolymer plant has been installed in China along with
several coated film production lines.
This study reviews current development of technology for the production of VDC
copolymers, and presents economics for a suspension process for VDC-vinyl chloride copolymer
resin, and an emulsion process for VDC-acrylates latex. Also presented, are the economics for
the two processes integrated with VDC production.
By Yu-Ren Chin
