There are few PVC foam manufacturers and the threat of substitutes is increasing.

PVC foam is a new composite polymer material formed by dispersing gas into solid polymer. According to its structure, it can be divided into linear PVC foam and cross-linked PVC foam. PVC foam preparation is mainly divided into chemical foaming and physical foaming. Chemical foaming generally uses two foaming agents: azobisisobutyronitrile and azodicarbonamide; physical foaming mainly uses supercritical carbon dioxide foaming. PVC foam material is a structural foam material that is currently used in large quantities.

PVC foam has already appeared in the 1930s. Subsequently, researchers conducted in-depth research on the performance and structure of PVC foam. Research shows that PVC foam has the general excellent properties of foam materials, such as light weight, low density, low thermal conductivity, good sound insulation effect, good energy absorption and good buffering performance, etc. It also has corrosion resistance, hydrophobicity and With the advantage of flame retardancy, it is suitable for contact molding (hand lay-up/spraying), bonding, resin injection (RTM), vacuum infusion, prepreg processing, thermoforming and other processes, and is compatible with epoxy resin, unsaturated polyester resin and Vinyl ester resin and other bonding. In view of the above excellent properties, PVC foam has been widely used in ships, wind energy, sports equipment, transportation and aerospace and other fields.
             
With the continuous development of downstream industries and the in-depth advancement of research, the market demand for PVC foam materials continues to expand. However, because PVC foam materials have very high technical and financial entry barriers, the number of companies in the PVC foam material industry has always been very small. According to the released “China PVC Foam Market Monitoring and Future Development Prospects Research Report 2023-2027”, currently, the global PVC foam Material manufacturing companies include Changzhou Tiansheng New Materials Co., Ltd., Longhua Technology Group (Luoyang) Co., Ltd., Sweden’s DIAB, etc.

The small number of companies has resulted in a weak supply capacity of PVC foam materials, and product prices have remained high. Moreover, the production process of PVC foam materials is complex, the cost is high, the high temperature resistance is poor, and there is a possibility of scorching during the molding process. Based on this market situation, a new structural foam material – PET foam material has appeared on the market. The source of PET foam raw materials can be waste PET plastics, so it has outstanding advantages in economy and environmental protection, and the price of PET foam materials is lower than that of PVC foam materials, so PET foam materials pose a strong substitution threat to PVC foam materials.

Industrial analysts said that although PVC foam materials have many excellent physical and chemical properties, with the development of rail transportation, aerospace, With the continuous development of wall insulation, wind power generation, ship navigation and other application fields, downstream users have increasingly higher requirements for PVC foam materials. Production companies must strengthen the reform of PVC foam production processes and find new ways out.