Polymer Substitutes for Medical Grade Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)

Abstract

Commercial production of PVC began in 1933 in both Germany and the United States. Although the polymer had been known since 1872, it had never found use because of severe problems with decomposition during processing. Because of the combination of PVC with plasticizers and other property modifiers, it has become the most widely uséd polymer in the world now in terms of the variety of applications. The material is made from vinyl chloride monomer (Figure 8–1), which is a gas at room temperature. This monomer can be copolymerized with a variety of other monomers yielding a host of other polymers containing significantly reduced amounts of vinyl chloride (Modern Plastics Encyclopedia 1990; Saunders 1988).