The Rise Of Artificial Turf And Raw Materials

Artificial turf has been widely used for its superior performance compared with natural turf since its birth more than 50 years ago. One day in April 1966, Houston's Space Dome Stadium, which is known as the "eighth wonder of the world", quietly waited for the start of the baseball league. However, what may not even be known by the spectators who are queuing to enter the stadium is that they witnessed a historic moment that day: before the start of the game, the baseball stadium was paved with the world's first artificial turf Astro lawn.
The reason why the artificial lawn is also called Astro lawn is that the American Astro Company was the first to invent the artificial lawn. The artificial lawn does not need watering and fertilization, has low maintenance cost, is less affected by climate and weather, is durable and has a good visual appearance, and soon becomes popular all over the world.
However, the texture of the artificial lawn was not as flexible and elastic as that of the natural lawn. The huge friction force caused frequent injuries to athletes, and even led to a special disease, Astro Toes. As a result, the newly developed artificial lawn has been put in the cold. In 1988, the British Football Association banned the use of artificial turf in official competitions, and then FIFA banned the use of artificial turf.
Later, with the application of new materials such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) and new processes, the performance of artificial turf has been greatly improved. In 2003, plastic surgeon Bill· Bashir said in a research report that, in the long run, artificial turf is safer than natural turf, because the growth of natural turf is inconsistent, and constant wear will slowly reduce the softness, thus increasing the possibility of ankle or other parts of the injury.
With the improvement of performance and people's understanding, artificial turf has become popular again. In particular, since July 1, 2003, the artificial turf that has passed the test of FIFA has been allowed to conduct official football matches, and the artificial turf has been increasingly used in various competitions. For example, in the 2018 World Cup in Russia, artificial turf was widely used.
PE and PP as main raw materials
From the perspective of chemical composition, the raw materials of artificial turf are mainly PE and PP, and PVC and polyamide can also be used. The artificial turf made of PE is more soft in feel, more similar in appearance and sports performance to natural grass, widely accepted by users, and is the most widely used artificial grass fiber raw material in the market at present; The artificial turf grass fiber made of PP is hard and generally suitable for tennis court, playground, runway or decoration, and its abrasion resistance is slightly worse than that of polyethylene