How Is Plastic Manufactured?
Are you interested to know how plastic is manufactured? Looks like you are because you are at the right place.
In this blog, we will go over the process of manufacturing plastic step by step. We have covered all 5 major steps involved in the process of manufacturing plastic and tried to sum up their objective in a succinct way. So without wasting any more time, let us find the answers to your question.
How Then Is Plastic Manufactured?
Plastic is used in a wide variety of products. Look around you; we bet you can find more than five items in your surroundings that are made of plastic. It is understandable to be curious about how this extensively used material is made in such a situation.
The following are the 5 main steps involved in manufacturing plastic:
Step 1 – Extraction
The plastics manufacturing process begins with raw material extraction, as you might have guessed. These raw materials majorly include fossil fuels such as natural gas, crude oil, sometimes coal, plants and more. Once these raw materials are procured, the next step begins.
Step 2 – Refinement
These fossil fuels cannot be used right away as they consist of a lot of impurities. This step occurs at oil refineries, where fossil fuels are broken down into different products. We get ethane and propane from the refining process, which includes burning fossil fuels and breaking them down.
Step 3 – Cracking
In this step, the ethane and propane refined from the fossil fuels in step 2 are treated with high heat, which helps them convert to monomers such as ethylene and propylene. This process is known as cracking.
Step 4 – Polymerization
The next step in the plastics manufacturing process is polymerization which is the most challenging part of the job. In this step, the monomers are converted into polymers [hence the name] that have higher molecular weight. For making plastic, there are two types of polymerization techniques:
Addition Polymerization
Condensation Polymerization
Based on the desired results and the material available, the type of technique of polymerization is decided.
Step 5 – Compounding Or Processing
And that brings us to the final step in the process, which is compounding or processing. This step includes melting and mixing different types of material to achieve one, which in our case is plastic. This mixture solution can be moulded into different kinds of shapes as per the requirements.
Conclusion
That was the process of how is plastic manufactured. The manufacturing process goes through mainly 5 steps, which are: extraction, refinement, cracking, polymerization and compounding or processing. We explained each of these steps, in brief, giving you an overview of how and what happens from the beginning to the end.