Within the last year, the market has had more challenges than I have come across around my three decades experience. In the past I have seen sharp price increases, and I have observed several shortages, and delivery problems resulting from plastic resin allocations from resin companies. This is the first instance I have seen all these issues at the same time.
PTFE (TFE) and PVDF are both on allocation.
These two resins are in short supply. The PTFE Sheet product PTFE (TFE) along with Kynar-PVDF manufacturing requires a mineral called Fluorspar which is mined in Mongolia and China. The world interest in this mineral has risen significantly, and the supply has tightened. PTFE materials have high heat resistance, excellent chemical resistance and really low co-efficient of friction (slippery) and is utilised throughout a lot of applications from non-stick fry cookware to ptfe tape for use at home. This particular mineral is actually a essential raw materials within the manufacturing of fluoropolymers, fluorolubricants and many refrigerants.This increased demand combined with shortage of raw materials has caused a dramatic price increase (almost double throughout the last year), shortages, and we expect these two factors to keep at it in the near future.