The term “resin” was formerly applied exclusively to a group of natural products, principally of vegetable origin, although at least one important resin, shellac, is of animal origin.[2] These natural resins are widely used in paints, varnishes, and lacquers for decorative and protective surface coatings. They also have extensive use in textile impregnation, adhesives, soap, paper, and in cold-molded articles. In recent years the natural resins have had to compete with synthetic products, and each gravitates toward uses which demand the quality or combination of qualities which it can most completely supply.
A resin may be defined as a semisolid or solid, complex, amorphous mixture of organic compounds with no definite melting point and no tendency to crystallize. The resins are characterized by a typical luster and a conchoidal fracture rather than by definite chemical composition. The term includes natural resins, such as colophony (ordinary rosin), copal, damar, lac, mastic, sandarac, shellac, etc., sometimes called gums or gum resins although none of them are true gums.
A synthetic resin is a resin made by synthesis from nonresinous organic compounds. The term includes materials ranging from viscous liquids to hard, infusible, amorphous solids. As a rule synthetic resins possess properties distinct from those of natural resins. The term “plastics,” sometimes applied to synthetic resins, also includes many materials which are not resins.
A plastic is anything possessing plasticity; that is, anything which can be deformed under mechanical stress without losing its coherence or its ability to keep its new form. According to this definition the term includes such materials as putty, cement, clay, glass, and metals, as well as certain modified natural or semisynthetic products, such as cellulose acetate, cellulose nitrate, and casein more commonly so designated. To speak of the plastics industries is almost meaningless because of their enormous scope, including as they do those producing cement, ceramics, confectionery and rubber, as well as those producing the semisynthetic products mentioned.
The resin industry embraces two main types of materials, thermoplastic and thermosetting. Thermoplastic materials are those which, although rigid at normal temperatures, may be deformed and molded under heat and pressure. Among such materials are the cellulose esters, acrylate resins, vinyl resins, polystyrene resins, etc. The recent development of injection molding has given thermoplastics a new significance.
Thermosetting substances are thermoplastic at some stage of their existence, but become hard, rigid, and permanently infusible upon the application of the proper heat and pressure. They are then irreversible whereas the thermoplastics are reversible. Outstanding among the thermosetting resins are tar-acid resins, urea resins, and the alkyd resins.
Tariff history.
The earliest mention of synthetic resins in the tariff laws of the United States was the provision in group III of the Emergency Tariff Act of 1916 for a duty of 30 percent ad valorem and 5 cents per pound on synthetic phenolic resins. None of the non-coal-tar synthetic resins were specifically mentioned prior to the Tariff Act of 1930.
The Tariff Act of 1922 (par. 28) provided for synthetic phenolic resin and all resinlike products, solid, semisolid or liquid, prepared from phenol, cresol, phthalic anhydride, coumarone, indene, or from any other article or material provided for in paragraph 27 or 1549. The rate of duty was 60 percent ad valorem based on American selling price or United States value and 7 cents per pound, with a provision that the ad valorem rate should be reduced to 45 percent 2 years after the passage of the act.