 Vinyl
Facts
It
is a popular misconception in our industry and amongst our customers
that a vinyl desk pad - or any vinyl product for that matter
- cannot be as soft and as pliable as a leather desk pad. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. Vinyl is a plastic, but it is unlike
other plastics in one very important sense.
You
might already know that vinyl is basically a plastic produced by
converting hydrocarbon-based raw materials (like crude oil) into
unique synthetic products called polymers. What you might
not know is that, unlike other plastics, vinyl is also composed
of salt.
Discovered
by accident in the 1920s by Waldo
Semon, the vinyl polymer was unlike other plastic commodities
in that it contained
chlorine (derived from common
salt) in addition to carbon and hydrogen. This not only gave vinyl
its flame retardant property, but its soft and pliable nature.
Chlorine and Ethylene
The creation of vinyl is a two step process. In the first step,
ethylene and chlorine are combined to form ethylene dichloride
which, in turn, is transformed into a gas called vinyl chloride
monomer.
The last step, polymerization, converts the monomer into
vinyl polymer, a fine-grained, white powder or resin known as polyvinyl
chloride, or simply "vinyl."
Once certain chemical additives and modifiers are added, the resulting
material -- a vinyl compound -- can be converted into an almost
limitless range of soft or hard products.
Because of this versatility we have vinyl products ranging from
the plastic saran wrap around your sandwich to leather-like desk
pads.
For more information on vinyl visit:
Vinyl
Facts - One Material, Infinite Uses.
Vinyl.Org -
The Vinyl Portal.
The Vinyl Institute
- A Vinyl Resource
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