Conductive Plastics Market

Conductive plastics are polymers which conduct electricity. They possess metallic conductivity or behave like semiconductors. Conductive plastics are a new variant of plastics with tremendous ongoing research to develop them further. It is estimated that, conductive plastics would find numerous applications across various industries. Many automobile manufacturers and aerospace engineers are studying conductive plastics in order to make them suitable for industrial applications. Conductive plastics are produced by incorporating carbon fibers, carbon nano - tubes or stainless steel fibers into plastic formulation. These dispersed fibers or nano tubes bring about the electrical conductivity effect in plastics.

The conductive polymers have the usual benefits of polymers such as moldability, ease of processing, light weight, corrosion resistance and design flexibility and in addition to these properties, they make the end product electrically conductive. These plastics find application in electronics, heavy engineering, automobiles and healthcare industry among others. The growing electronics and medical devices industry are the primary drivers of conductive plastics. Conductive plastics are a class of structural materials. They are called so because they are capable of performing several functions owing to their structure. The growing trend of owning small, light weight and smart gadgets is expected to fuel the growth of the conductive plastics market. Using conductive plastics, light weight gadgets can be manufactured, because, separate components to induce electrical conductivity would not be required if conductive plastics are used. However, conductive plastics possess poorer mechanical properties compared to traditional plastics. There is a lot of ongoing research in this field, in order to make them suited for precision processing, by enhancing their mechanical properties. This is expected to open new areas of opportunity for conductive plastics.