There are two primary industrial production methods for ABS:
Blending acrylonitrile-styrene copolymer (AS) with polybutadiene (B), or mixing the two latices followed by copolymerization;
Performing graft copolymerization by adding acrylonitrile and styrene monomers to polybutadiene latex.
The raw materials and energy required to produce 1 kilogram of ABS resin are roughly equivalent to those needed to produce 2 kilograms of petroleum.
Chi Mei Corporation is the world's largest producer of ABS resin; its plants in Tainan and Zhenjiang produce approximately 1.7 million tons of ABS resin annually. Other major ABS resin manufacturers include Bayer, LG Chem, GE Plastics, BASF, and Dow Chemical.
Material Outlook
ABS is a general-purpose thermoplastic engineering plastic developed in the 1940s. It is a plastic variety with excellent comprehensive mechanical properties; it offers not only good rigidity, hardness, and processing flowability but also high toughness, and it can be processed via injection molding, extrusion, or thermoforming.
Most automotive components are manufactured using injection molding. ABS resin offers advantages such as superior impact resistance, sound insulation, scratch resistance, and heat resistance, as well as better aesthetics compared to polypropylene (PP); it is particularly suitable for components requiring high transverse impact resistance and performance across a strict temperature range. ABS resin is the third most widely used resin in the automotive industry, ranking behind polyurethane and polypropylene. It is used for interior and exterior vehicle housings, steering wheels, oil lines, handles, and buttons, as well as exterior components like front radiator grilles and light housings. ABS resin is easy to process, offering good dimensional stability and surface gloss; it is easily painted and colored, and supports secondary processing operations such as metal spraying, electroplating, welding, and bonding. It is widely used in the electronics and electrical appliance sectors, including office equipment and consumer electronics; office applications include electronic data processing machines and general office equipment. In the electronics and electrical appliance market, ABS resin maintains a strong position, particularly where flame retardancy and high heat resistance are required; flame-retardant and high-heat-resistant ABS resins hold a distinct advantage when competing against engineering plastic alloys such as ABS/PC. ABS resin is widely used in consumer goods, such as construction piping, boards, and sheets; however, in recent years, it has been partially displaced by lower-priced PVC resin. In construction-related applications, ABS resin is used for extruded sheets-such as those for sanitary fixtures (e.g., bathtubs and swimming pool liners)-as well as for injection-molded pipes and fittings, and, to a lesser extent, for extruded telephone cable conduits.