JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #89 - May 2014 - 24

WPC
provides an overview and a
forecast of the global WPC
market. Worldwide, WPC
production will rise from 2.43
million tonnes in 2012 to
3.83 million tonnes in 2015.
Although North America
is still the world's leading
production region with 1.1
million tonnes, ahead of
China (900,000 t) and Europe
(260,000 t), it is expected
that China (with 1.8 million t
by then) will have overtaken
North America (1.4 million t)
by 2015. European production
will grow by around 10% per
year and reach 350,000 tonnes
in 2015 (see Figure 2).

Fig. 1: Application fields of WPC in Europe in 2012 (total production 260,000
tonnes, all production processes) (Source: nova 2014)

tribution across applications
points to a state of affairs in
which WPC is increasingly
used for applications beyond
the traditional ones like
decking or automotive parts.
For example, WPC is more
and more commonly used to
produce furniture, technical
parts, consumer goods and
household electronics, using
injection moulding and other
non-extrusion processes. New
production methods are also
being developed for the extrusion of broad WPC boards.
Figure 1 shows the various
application fields of WPC
produced in Europe. The
decking market leads the way
with 67% (mainly extrusion),
followed by automotive interior parts with 23% (mainly
compression moulding and
sheet extrusion as well as thermoforming). Although they
still account for a small share,
siding and fencing, along

with technical applications
(mainly extrusion), consumer
goods and furniture (mainly
injection moulding), are
showing the highest percentage increases.
In the face of rising prices
for plastics, WPC granulates
are becoming more and
more attractive for injection
moulding, and increasingly
featured in European granulate suppliers' product ranges.
Three big paper companies
released cellulose-based PP
granulates for injection moulding between 2012 and 2013.
These granulates use a PP
matrix with cellulose and have
fibre contents between 20 and
50% for new and interesting
applications such as furniture,
consumer goods and automotive parts.
The report also gives an
overview of the latest market developments in North
America, Asia and Russia, and

24 jec composites magazine / No89 May 2014

The share of WPC decking in
the North American decking
market is once more on the
up, after a period of housing
crises and WPC quality problems that led to a shakeout of
the top WPC producers.
In China, decking also has
a larger market share than
other WPC applications,
mainly due to strong exports,
although the domestic market

has developed rapidly in
recent times. China also has
the largest window and door
market in the world. Hence,
companies have recently
started to produce commercial
window frames using WPC,
with approximately 40% wood
fibre as a substitute for PVC in
combination with aluminium.
China produces a large variety
of WPC for indoor applications. Another successful
product is an extruded WPC
door that is already produced
by 30 companies.

The automotive industry
Interior parts for the automotive industry are by far the
most dominant use of natural
fibre composites - other sectors such as consumer goods
are still at a very early stage. In
the automotive sector, natural
fibre composites have a clear
focus on interior trims for
high-value doors and dashboards. Wood-plastic composites are mainly used in rear
shelves and trims for trunks
and spare wheels, as well as in

Fig. 2: Global production of WPC in 2010 and 2012, and forecast for 2015 (nova 2014)
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #89 - May 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #89 - May 2014
