Epoxy PVC Plasticizers

Epoxy based monomeric plasticizers

Epoxy plasticizers (epoxides) are used in almost every PVC
formulations due to their heat and light stabilizing properties. They are
usually synthesized by the epoxidation of the olefinic double bonds of
the starting material to form oxirane rings which are characteristic to
epoxides.

The presence of an oxirane ring offers a co-stabilizing functionality,
proving the formulators to reduce the relatively expensive main heat
stabilizer in the formulation.

There are various epoxides available commercially, however, due to the
availability, cost-performance, Epoxidized Soy bean Oils (ESO) has
become the predominantly used epoxy plasticizer.

One of the disadvantages of using epoxide as the plasticizer is that they
could photo-oxidized under certain environments, causing the plasticizer
bleeding due to incompatibility of the degraded products. Thus, usage of
epoxides is limited to be as the secondary plasticizer in many of the
flexible PVC products.