June 23, affected by the financial crisis, 2008 TPE market sales fell for the first time in recent years, but some TPE sub-industries still showed a stable upward trend. With the improvement of the future economic environment, the US TPE market is expected to continue to rise steadily.

The market will continue to grow in the future

In 2008, U.S. TPE sales edged down 0.2% to 1.372 billion pounds, negatively impacted by shrinking demand from downstream industries and the spreading financial crisis. With the recovery of the economy, the future US TPE market will resume a small steady rise in the trend, is expected to 2009-2014 annual growth rate will remain at about 2%.

TPE is a kind of polymer material with physical properties between rubber and plastic, which has both the elasticity of rubber and the ease of processing of plastic. It is widely used in automotive parts, household appliances, footwear, wire and cable, sports equipment, conveyor belt and other fields, and is also used in plastic modifiers to improve the impact resistance of plastics.

Under the financial crisis, some TPE sub-industries still perform well. Thermoplastic EPDM dynamic vulcanized elastomer (TPV) industry still maintained a steady upward trend in 2008, sales rose slightly by about 0.7% compared with 2007, its application in the medical industry in recent years has shown a high growth rate, is expected to be one of the hot areas of industry development in the next few years. Polyurethane thermoplastic elastomer (TPU) sales in 2008 increased by about 1% compared with 2007, and the overall development was relatively stable. The market demand for polyether ester elastomers (COPE) increased steadily, and the overall sales growth rate of the industry maintained 1.4% in 2008. With its excellent product performance and high technical threshold, polyester thermoplastic elastomer (PEBA) occupies the high-end niche market, and the sales growth rate of this product is as high as 3.8% in 2008.

Three features are favored

The main factors driving the development of the TPE market in the United States come from three aspects:

First, TPE can replace traditional materials such as thermosetting rubber and PVC plastics, and its easy processing performance has become one of the main driving factors for the growing TPE market in the United States. Although the replacement rate of TPE for thermosetting rubber in the United States is already very high, there is still room for improvement in the replacement rate of automotive sealing systems, medical products and other industries. At the same time, due to the problem of PVC in environmental protection has aroused great concern in the United States, reducing the use of PVC materials and switching to environmentally friendly materials has become one of the mainstream trends of future development. TPE has become one of the ideal materials to replace PVC due to its outstanding flexibility and ease of processing.

Second, TPE new products emerge in an endless stream. In the concept of environmental protection continues to gain popularity today, more and more manufacturers focus on the development of environmentally friendly products. In addition, improving the product's own performance is also the focus of research and development, so as to further expand the application field to meet the increasingly stringent requirements of customers.

Third, TPE has recyclable characteristics. One of the main characteristics of TPE products is that they can be recycled, and the performance of the products produced after recycling is not significantly reduced. The disposal of waste rubber has become an increasingly prominent social issue in the United States, and TPE will also be favored by end customers due to its recyclable characteristics.

The price/performance ratio is slightly lower

As a relatively mature market, the US TPE market is also facing many limiting factors for its future development. At present, the global financial crisis is spreading, and the main downstream industries of TPE, such as automobiles and construction, are deeply affected by the crisis. This has also directly affected the demand for TPE products in these industries, and in 2008, TPE market sales declined for the first time in recent years. Market participants expect that with the improvement of the economic situation, TPE market sales will gradually recover.

Compared with traditional synthetic rubber and other products, although TPE is more prominent in product performance, its high price makes it slightly inferior in terms of cost performance, such as in the automotive industry with high temperature resistance and oil resistance requirements, rubber is still widely used. In addition, the price of crude oil has soared in recent years, and the price of TPE products has also risen sharply, which makes many downstream customers unable to accept the low cost performance of TPE, which is also one of the important factors limiting the development of TPE industry.