WHAT IS PC?

Polycarbonate is an amorphous thermoplastic. It owns many excellent properties including temperature resistance, impact resistance and transparency. Besides, it can be easily processed, molded or thermoformed. All these features make it an ideal choice for a wide range of applications.

The chemical structure of polycarbonate is a group of thermoplastic polymers containing long carbonate polymer chains which contribute to its excellent features.

In 1953, Hermann Schnell first synthesised polycarbonate at Bayer labs in West Germany. Polycarbonate has since been branded as Makrolon as a commercialized product, produced and distributed by Covestro.
With many high-performance properties, polycarbonate is incredibly useful for various applications.

Automotive

Due to the light weight, high impact resistance and great level of transparency, polycarbonate has a lot of applications in automotive industry. Due to the high impact resistance, PC becomes suitable to replace the use of metal in some specific areas and offers new design avenues for decorative parts. Lighting fixtures such as optical reflectors and headlamps are commonly made of polycarbonate.

Electronics

Polycarbonate has good heat resistance, flame retardance and it is a good electrical insulator. With these safety properties, it is well qualified to be used for electronic applications.

Construction

The construction industry is also a big consumer for polycarbonate. Despite the lighting relevant applications like dome lights, PC is also used as a substitution for glass such as curved glazing and sound walls. In terms of light transmission, PC is better than many kinds of glass and is easily coated to protect against UV radiation.

Medical

Aside from outstanding mechanical properties, polycarbonate also shows potentials in more applications with great heat resistance. It can be sterilized using steam at 120 °C which is an acceptable method for medical sterilization.

Generally speaking, polycarbonate is one of the most widely used engineering plastics. It can used when impact resistance, heat resistance, flame retardance, or transparency is required.