They are liquid materials that are mixed with hard polymers to make them soft and flexible to make them processable and to create a variety of uses.
Chemically, plasticizer molecules penetrate between polymer molecules and reduce molecular attraction.
In the last 60 years, about 30,000 different compounds have been introduced as plasticizers, but currently about 50 of them have industrial and commercial applications. The most common use of plasticizers is in PVC compounding.
The materials that are most commonly used as plasticizers today are:
Phthalates
Terephthalates
Epoxies
Aliphatics
Trimellites
