Beijing (Feb. 23, 2012) – A wide range of elastomers – notably butyl rubber, Nitrile rubber, EPDM and isoprene have been targetted for growth in China's 12th five-year plan for the materials industry published yesterday.

The document says China aims to meet at least 70 percent of domestic demand for key elastomeric materials by 2015.

The document mentions by name, “butyl rubber (IIR), nitrile rubber (NBR), ethylene propylene rubber (EPR), isoprene rubber (IR), polyurethane rubber, fluorine rubber and related elastomers.” The aim is to increase production capacity and speed up technical development in these materials and also in acrylic rubber and halogenated butyl rubber, hydrogenated nitrile rubber, chloroprene rubber and cold high-end styrene elastomer, resistant to high temperature silicone rubber, low temperature Viton.”

In a separate paragraph, the document calls for more development of silicone monomer production to support silicone rubber activities.