Natural Degradation on Plastics and Corrosion of Plastics in Industrial Environment

More than 500 million tons of plastics are used globally in large number of industrial and household applications, involving different varieties of plastics. Though plastics are alternative materials to metals and alloys in terms of their deterioration due to corrosion, they still undergo different types of degradation. Thermal degradation, corrosion in natural environment, especially UV light and ozone, corrosion by toxic chemicals, polar organic solvents and micro-biological corrosion and bio-fouling, still cause low to heavy deterioration of plastics. The paper covers a basic classification of various kinds of plastic deterioration, followed by categorization of various plastics, in terms of different modes of corrosion, based upon the chemical composition and molecular structure.