Environmental and micro-environmental influences affecting the performance of polymer stabilisers

The accelerated testing of the efficiency and longevity of modern stabiliser packages is expected to provide data allowing us to reduce the development cycle in designing future polymer articles for outdoor application within a commercially acceptable time. Acceleration of photooxidation, heterogeneity in polymer degradation, formation of concentration gradients in stabiliser consumption, and the possibility of determining the spatial distribution of stabiliser transformation products or the negative influences accounting for atmospheric pollutants are analysed to minimize misleading data from accelerated tests, and to provide a base giving more information on the chemical and physical processes accompanying the testing of stabilised polymers.