How Much do You Know about Foaming Materials?

How much do you know about foaming materials?

Foaming material, also known as foaming agent, is a substance that can gasify inside the material to produce bubbles to make it porous material foam, such as the manufacture of foam, foam rubber, foam resin, foam food (buns, buns, bread, cakes), etc. Foaming materials can be divided into three categories: chemical foaming materials, physical foaming materials and surfactants.

Foam materials mainly include polyurethane, EPS, PET and rubber foam materials, etc., which are widely used in the application fields of heat insulation and energy saving, weight reduction, structural function, impact resistance and comfort, etc.

Reflecting functionality, covering a number of industries such as building materials and construction, furniture and home appliances, oil and water transmission, transportation, military and logistics packaging.

Because of the wide range of uses, the current annual market size of foam materials to maintain a high growth rate of 20%, is the current application of new materials in the field of rapid growth, but also triggered the industry's great concern. Polyurethane (PU) foam is the largest proportion of China's foam products.

According to statistics, the global market size of foaming materials is about $93.9 billion, growing at a rate of 4%-5% per year, and it is estimated that by 2026, the global market size of foaming materials is expected to grow to $118.9 billion.

With the shift in global economic focus, rapid changes in science and technology, and the continuous development of the industrial foaming sector, the Asia-Pacific region has accounted for the largest share of the global foaming technology market. 2020 China's plastic products production reached 76.032 million tons, down 0.6% year-on-year from 81.842 million tons in 2019. 2020 China's foam production reached 2.566 million tons, down 0.62% year-on-year from 0.62% year-on-year decline in 2019.

Among them, Guangdong Province ranks first in foam production in the country, with an output of 643,000 tons in 2020; followed by Zhejiang Province, with an output of 326,000 tons; Jiangsu Province ranks third, with an output of 205,000 tons; Sichuan and Shandong ranked fourth and fifth in turn, with an output of 168,000 tons and 140,000 tons respectively.

From the proportion of total national foam production in 2020, Guangdong accounted for 25.1%, Zhejiang accounted for 12.7%, Jiangsu accounted for 8.0%, Sichuan accounted for 6.6% and Shandong accounted for 5.4%.