Petrochemicals are gradually being used in most of the
office automation equipments. There are three chief petrochemical products used in office automation viz., polystyrene, polypropylene, and polyethylene.
Polystyrene, polypropylene, and polyethylene are used for a wide range of office automation equipments. Each of these petrochemical products can be classified depending on the kind of usages derived from them for different sets of equipments. Among the 3, however, Polystyrene is used most extensively for office automation equipment.
Polystyrene is used for the following office equipments:
- Internal parts
- Paper trays
- Photocopiers
- Toner cartridges
- Computer monitors
- Printers
- Fax machines
- Copier covers
- Cassettes
Different grades of the polystyrene are used for different applications of the automation equipments. They include flammability rating, UV stability, flammability rating, flame retardants, and so on. The types of polystyrene used are divided into crystal, impact, and compound polystyrenes.
In order to get an idea as to what role petrochemicals play in office equipments, one can take the example of a simple flame retardant-high precision resin mechanical part that is used in automation equipment. This mechanical part has various advantages viz., gas assisted injection molding and an inorganic filler existing in form of mica and glass flakes. It eventually facilitates better and accurate functioning of the equipment.
Office automation equipment requiring only fire retardation can make use of a new product which is based on fire retarded thermoplastic resin composition. This composition is valuable in the context of increasing the life of the equipment.
There is an urgent need to increase the use of petrochemicals in
office automation equipment inIndia to keep pace with the office automation equipment used in countries such as USA and Germany.Indian corporate houses have already started using petrochemicals in smaller machines since the benefits of using petrochemicals in office equipments are tremendous.
