It would hardly seem possible that an unpronounceable material like polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS), which in the recent past cost as much as $200 per pound, could find itself quickly becoming a commodity bulk material. But its not too far-fetched as analysts expect the material to drop to about $15 per pound in just a few years. Okay, thats still not bulk material prices, but the trend is inexorably downward. So POSS joins carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, and whole families of nanoparticles in making the transition from high value nanotech to low value bulk chemicals.
One company that sees the writing on the wall is Hybrid Plastics Inc., which has announced that in addition to the extruder line it installed in 2004 for the compounding of POSS® masterbatch at its new facility in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, it is planning a second extruder line in 2005 to satisfy demand from customers who began launching commercial film applications in the fall of 2004. Its not a new trick as companies such as Hyperion Catalysis have only ever sold masterbatch materials (a masterbatch is a high concentration of an additive such as carbon nanotubes or pigments, dispersed in carrier medium compatible with the polymer being used, that plastics manufacturers add in small quantities to get the desired properties).
Nanomaterial producers know that the advanced materials market is a cut-throat one with low margins and tough competition. We saw this at the end of the 1990s with just about every large chemical company divesting their commodity chemical businesses in favour of specialty chemicals and higher value products, we will see a continuing trend of nanomaterial producers looking to become both the producer of the materials and the products they go intomoving up the value chain. A quick run down of Hybrid Plastics recent press releases gives ample evidence of this trend.
The implications of this are intriguing. It could mean that nanomaterial producers wont wait for other industries to figure out that these materials could create new and improved products with increased functionality and higher costs, they will just start making the products themselves.
Perhaps this is the trend that will begin to supercharge the adoption of nanomaterials into more and more consumer products.