Polymer stabilization:: present status and possible future trends

Stabilization of polymer material continues to be an important technical field with lot of industrial and scientific attention. Future developments in the field of polymer stabilization need to reflect the corresponding economical requirements. However, ecological requirements start to play increasingly important role in development of stabilization packages for polymers. Present theoretical understanding of polymer degradation and stabilization principles does not yet sufficiently cover the full chemical and physical complexity of polymer stabilization, and therefore it can be expected that most of new developed stabilizers and stabilization systems in near future would be still based on accumulated practical experience and existing empirical know-how.