As far as China's current plastics industry is concerned, the development of renewable resources industry is becoming one of the important aspects of China's development of circular economy industry. Affected by pressure for environmental protection, the country's emphasis on the environmentally-friendly recycling industry has gradually increased. Among them, plastics are the main source of “white pollution”, and its recycling and environmental protection is much concerned by environmentalists.

With the advent of the low-carbon economy era, traditional materials and processes can no longer meet the development requirements. Energy-saving, environmentally friendly, lightweight, 3D printing has more and more becoming a hot spot for TPE plastics companies. New TPE materials are bound to become the development direction of plastics enterprises. As a new type of elastomer compound with energy saving and environmental protection, TPE is very promising.

TPE material hascharacteristics like environmental protection, non-toxic safety, wide hardness range, excellent coloring property, soft touch, weather resistance, fatigue resistance and temperature resistance, excellent processing performance, no need for vulcanization and waste scrap can be recycled. It is also the material with injection molding processing characteristics, which has high elasticity, high strength and high resilience of rubber. It can be over-molded and coated with PP, PE, PC, PS, ABS and other base materials, or it can be molded separately.

It is reported that in China's existing land, the number of cars is only behind the United States, currently more than 100 million, ranking second in the world. At the same time, China is also a major manufacturing country in the automotive industry worldwide. According to statistics, it can be achieved an annual output of more than 18 million vehicles. It can be seen that the market prospect of TPE plastics for vehicles is quite broad, which has become a hot spot for many TPE companies. TPE is often used in automotive parts such as automotive seals, automotive steering wheel covers, automotive mats, dust covers, bellows and etc.

According to the 3D industry authority report, the average annual growth rate of the 3D printing market in the past three years is 27.4%. It is expected that the 3D printing market will reach US$6 billion in 2019. Among them, the market share in medical applications accounted for 15.1%, and it is expected that the market will reach 1.9 billion US dollars in 2025, equivalent to more than 10 billion yuan. The rapidly growing market size has led some TPE companies to sniff out business opportunities and is gradually turning to this area. Recently, the author has received that many customers are looking for TPE super soft 0 degree material to do the simulation organ liver, and the intestinal tract part is printed in 3D. Undoubtedly, the softness and environmentally-friendly recyclability of TPE materials is an absolute advantage in 3D printed materials.