PRODUCTION OF POLYVINYL CHLORIDE

• Composed of two simple building blocks:

1. Chlorine (based on common salt)
2. Ethylene (from crude oil)

• The resulting compound, ethylene dichloride, is converted at very high temperatures to vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) gas.
• Through the chemical reaction known as polymerisation, VCM becomes a chemically stable powder, polyvinyl chloride.

Definitions:

• Polymerization is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form three-dimensional networks of polymer chains
• monomer is a small molecule that may become chemically bonded to other monomers to form a polymer