WHAT IS PVC | WHAT IS UPVC?
PVC is the three-letter acronym used to describe polyvinyl chloride, a synthetic plastic and highly versatile material.
PVC is widely used within modern society and sector applications as pipe for transporting fluids from water to chemicals to ingredients. uPVC stands for unplasticized polyvinyl chloride and is PVC without plasticizing (flexibility) agents added.
PVC and uPVC is often used to refer to the same product and most standard PVC pipe is actually uPVC pipe. At its basic level, PVC is a repeating macromolecule of individual vinyl chloride (VC) monomer units that have been joined together by chemical reaction to produce the polymer polyvinyl chloride, PVC.
To classify the polymer, PVC belongs to the thermoplastic division of plastic materials.
As a thermoplastic, this means PVC softens when heated and can become molten for use in production or recycled for reuse. This is similar to olefins such as polyethylene and polypropylene that are also thermoplastics. Also similar to olefins, PVC is derived from the refinery process of natural oil resources that make modern fuels. Ethylene gas and chlorine from rock salt (NaCl) are reacted together to produce vinyl chloride, which is then further refined to produce polyvinyl chloride, also known as PVC.