Great Shortage of Antistatic Agents
                      By Zhi Xin
Editor's Note:
There is a great demand of engineering plastics  in  China.
However, both  the  capacity  and  output  of  engineering
plastics  are  small.   There  is  little  consumption  of
auxiliaries, and the varieties used are similar  to  those
used in general-purpose plastics. A brief introduction  is
therefore made in this  issue  about  the  development  of
major auxiliaries for plastics in China.
The development of antistatic
        agents for plastics started in the 70's  in  China.
Many varieties of antistatic agents for plastics have been
produced or developed by producers and research institutes
. However,  the  sector  has  expanded  only  slowly.   Few
varieties have formed scale production, and many  products
are still at  the  stage  of  trial  production  or  batch
production. Except a few  producers  with  a  capacity  of
around 100 t/a, most producers only  have  a  capacity  of
several tons or several dozen tons a year.
Major  antistatic  agents   produced   in   China   include
quaternary varieties,   non- ionic  alkylamido  varieties,
organic amine varieties and aliphatic varieties.
Major producers of antistatic agents for  plastics  include
Hangzhou Research Institute of Chemical Industry,  Beijing
  Research  Institute  of  Chemical  Industry,     Shanghai
  Auxiliaries  Plant  and  Shanxi  Research  Institute   of
Chemical Industry.
The annual output of antistatic agents  in  China  is  less
than 1 000 tons.
The output of synthetic resins in China  was  around  5. 45
million tons in 1996, and the output of  plastic  products
was more than 8 million tons.  The  output  of  antistatic
agents falls far  short  of  the  demand  in  the  plastic
processing sector, and high-quality varieties will have to
be imported.