Cyclic Olefin Copolymers commonly known as "COC", are copolymers of Norborone and Ethylene. COC being good optically, was considered to play a significant role in the optical disk marks along with Polycarbonate and Acrylics.

A decade later, the use of COC in this market segment is very small, mainly due to significantly higher costs as compared to PC or Acrylics. COC films and sheet have made some inroads into Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD). COC produces films of excellent surface finish with clarity and hence are used for Light guide panels (LGP) for LCD. Another application of COC film/sheet is for the screen of laptop computers. Even screens of coloured PDAS and cell phones have been using COC films/sheets. The higher costs of COC films/sheets as compared to Acrylic, however, have restricted its usage only in the premium brands.

Mitsui Chemical manufactures 3000 tonnes of COC film based on TOPAS grades of TICONA and does not intend to expand the film capactity possibility indicating the lack of confidence on growth prospects of COC films. On the other hand ZEON, a producer COC resin has started production of films and sheets. Similarly another Japanese resin producer JSR Corp is contemplating film production along with increased capacity of COC resin production.This optimism is possibly stemmed from the tremendous growth expectations of LCD to reach a global market of almost 20 million by 2006.

COC injection moulded plates have met with some success in medical diagnostic devices due to better resistance to higher temperture sterlization. The development for pharmacetical blister packaging as replacement halogenated barrier materials such as PVDC has not yet resulted into commercial success yet mainly due to better barrier properties of PVDC blister. Higher thickness to achieve good barrier properties cause difficulties in pushing tablets out of the blisters. Some success is achieved to provide better stiffness when 5-20% COC is blended with LDPE for production of track closures used for bags to pack some products like shredded cheese etc.

COC is commercially produced by TICONA in Germany at 30,000 tonnes/year capacity plant. There are two Japanese producers like ZEON Corp and JSR Corp with capacities of 5000 and 1000 tonnes/year. TICONA does not plan to increase the capacity until it recovers financial cost. The bright future in Japanese LCDs, Laptops and PDA has provided encouragement to Zeon Corp to set up a plant of about 15-20000 tonnes/year in the near future.

Will this bring down the price of COC? If it does, the markets of COC will certainly grow well.

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