Outlook
Polyphenylene ether PPE alloys - economic aspects

Growth prospects for PPE and alloys have always been weaker than for other engineering plastics.

Given the lack of promising developments and the absence of new developments, PPE/PS is now considered a mature plastic. The decline in demand is set to continue, slowly but steadily, over the next few years.

On the other hand, applications for PPE/PA alloys in vehicle wings appear more attractive, and should guarantee growth for these types of alloys for a long time to come.

The combination of these two effects leads to an estimated growth of at least 2% per year for the next few years, perhaps even more with body innovations for mass-market models.

According to recent forecasts by Sabic Innovative Plastics, now a major player in engineering plastics, some 68 million automobiles were manufactured worldwide in 2010. This figure is set to rise to 85 million in 2014, and 100...