Polyethylene Wax: Properties, Uses in Plastics and Regulatory Status

Polyethylene wax (PE wax, CAS 9002-88-4) is a low-molecular-weight polyethylene used as an external lubricant in rigid PVC and as a dispersant and carrier in masterbatch and filled compounds. Because it is a polymer rather than a small molecule, PE wax is described by a molecular-weight distribution instead of a single molecular weight, which is what separates it from paraffin.

Polyethylene wax is authorised as an additive in EU food-contact plastics as FCM substance 549 (Ref 80000) in Annex I of Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 with no specific migration limit, and it is exempt from registration as a polymer under Article 2(9) of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, the REACH Regulation (status 24 September 2026). PE wax is one of the lubricant entries in our directory of plastic additives, each with the same identity, dosage and regulatory fields.

This page holds the plastics view of the wax: the identity behind CAS 9002-88-4, the external-lubrication and filler-wetting mechanism, the property values grade by grade, the dosage of 0.0 to 0.3 phr in rigid PVC pipe and 3 wt% in filler masterbatch, 5 applications, the lubricant balance, a dated regulatory matrix, the comparison with OPE, paraffin, Fischer-Tropsch and montan wax, and the producers a buyer can source.

Table T1. Polyethylene wax identity card.

Footnote: identity fields from the Struktol and Baerlocher technical literature and from the Annex I list of Regulation (EU) No 10/2011; molecular-weight figures from Mhlabeni, Jamiru and Mhike (2024) and Radebe and colleagues (2022). Status as of 24 September 2026.

What Is Polyethylene Wax (PE Wax)?#

PE wax is a polyethylene whose chains are short enough to melt and flow like a wax: the repeat unit is the same (C2H4)n as in a moulding resin, but the average molecular mass reaches only about 10,000 g/mol. How short does a polyethylene chain have to be before it counts as a wax? The review by Mhlabeni, Jamiru and Mhike (2024) in Frontiers in Chemical Engineering places the average molecular mass of polyethylene wax at up to about 10,000 g/mol, against roughly 200 to 1,000 g/mol for paraffin and Fischer-Tropsch waxes, so PE wax occupies the heavy end of the wax range rather than the light end of the polymer range.

That position in the middle is what makes the material useful. A polyolefin wax is non-oxidized when no carboxyl or ester groups have been introduced onto the chain, and a wholly non-polar hydrocarbon of this length has almost no affinity for polar PVC, which is the definition of an external lubricant in the Baerlocher lubricants brochure (2017). PE wax belongs to the hydrocarbon branch of the processing lubricants for plastics, the family that also holds the metal soaps, the esters and the bis-amides.

What does PE wax stand for, and what is its CAS number?#

PE wax stands for polyethylene wax, and its CAS number is 9002-88-4, the same registry number that covers polyethylene homopolymer in general. A CAS match therefore tells a purchasing reader nothing about the molecular weight, the melting range or the grade, because the identical number sits on the certificate of a moulding resin and on the certificate of a wax; the synonyms LMW polyethylene and homopolymer PE wax carry the same ambiguity.

Is polyethylene wax the same as polyethylene?#

Chemically PE wax is polyethylene, and it shares the CAS number 9002-88-4 with moulding grades, but its chains are one to two orders of magnitude shorter, so it melts into a low-viscosity liquid instead of a rubbery melt. Radebe and colleagues (2022) measured a commercial PE wax at Mn 4,715 and Mw 14,960 Da, values that sit far below any injection-moulding or pipe resin, and the practical consequence is a melting range of 90 to 105 °C (194 to 221 °F) for Struktol PE(H)-100 and 102 to 110 °C (215.6 to 230 °F) for Baerlocher's Baerolub PA-L.

How is PE wax made?#

PE wax is made by 3 routes: direct polymerization of ethylene, thermal or mechanical degradation of high-molecular-weight polyethylene, and separation of the low-molecular-weight fraction out of a conventional polyethylene. The route list comes from the Wikipedia entry on polyethylene wax, an encyclopedia-level secondary source rather than a producer data sheet or a peer-reviewed paper, and it is reproduced here at that level of detail only.

1. Direct polymerization of ethylene to a wax-length chain.
2. Thermal or mechanical degradation of high-molecular-weight polyethylene.
3. Separation of the low-molecular-weight fraction from a conventional polyethylene.

The same source attaches one condition to routes 2 and 3: the lightest fractions have to be removed, because they cause a low flash point, migration and equipment build-up. No process conditions, catalysts, temperatures or yields are recorded in our sources.

How Does Polyethylene Wax Lubricate a Polymer?#

PE wax lubricates from the outside: its non-polar hydrocarbon chains have almost no affinity for polar PVC, so they migrate to the melt surface and form a film between the compound and the hot metal of the screw, die and calender roll. Why does a wax end up at the metal wall instead of inside the melt? The rule set out in the Baerlocher lubricants brochure (2017) is one of polarity and chain length: molecules that carry polar groups on C14 to C18 chains stay compatible with the resin and act internally, while non-polar chains above C20 and up to about C100 are incompatible and act externally.

PE wax sits at the far end of that scale, above C100 in chain terms and wholly without polar groups. The film it forms reduces adhesion between PVC and metal, the working definition of external lubrication, and the same incompatibility prolongs fusion, because the wax delays the point at which the resin particles break down and weld into a homogeneous melt.

Internal and external lubricants: where PE wax sits#

PE wax is a pure external lubricant: in the Baerlocher performance matrix it sits with paraffin and the fatty acids on the metal-release side, not with the polar esters that reduce inner friction. External lubricants in that matrix give high PVC-metal release, prolong fusion time, reduce melt viscosity, and at high dosage cause haziness and exudation and can worsen printability, weldability and adhesion. Internal lubricants do the opposite: they reduce inner friction with almost no influence on fusion time and no negative effect on transparency or printability.

The binary is a working simplification rather than a property of the molecules: the classification depends on the individual product, and suppliers disagree on specific substances. Baerlocher classes calcium stearate, which melts at about 160 °C (about 320 °F), as internal, and zinc stearate, which melts at about 120 °C (about 248 °F), as external. Table T4 gives the full ranges and actions.

How PE wax wets fillers and pigments#

The second job of PE wax is wetting: the molten wax coats calcium carbonate and pigment particles, lowers the viscosity of the highly filled melt and lets the dispersive elements of the extruder break agglomerates apart. Filler wetting differs from metal release: the wax works at the interface between polymer and solid rather than between polymer and steel, which is why masterbatch uses whole percentage points instead of fractions of a phr.

Radebe and colleagues (2022) quantified the effect in a 60 wt% calcium carbonate LLDPE masterbatch: the melt viscosity without additives was 3 times that of the neat polymer, and 3 wt% wax with 1.0 wt% zinc stearate brought it back to just above that of the neat polymer. Wetting is the same job the dispersing agents for plastics and masterbatch do, which is why wax and dispersant selection are decided together.

What Are the Physical and Chemical Properties of Polyethylene Wax?#

PE wax is supplied as white beads or powder, melts between 90 and 110 °C (194 to 230 °F) depending on the grade, and has a specific gravity of about 0.91, and every one of these values is a grade property rather than a constant of the substance. The formula (C2H4)n and the CAS number 9002-88-4 are shared across the whole class, so the only figures that identify a product are the ones on its technical data sheet. Table T2 names the grade next to each value for that reason.

Table T2. Recorded physical properties of polyethylene wax, by grade.

Footnote: the viscosity and acid-value figures published for oxidized PE wax belong to a different substance and are not transferred to this table.

What is the melting point of polyethylene wax?#

Commercial PE wax grades melt between 90 and 110 °C (194 to 230 °F): Struktol PE(H)-100 is specified at 90 to 105 °C (194 to 221 °F) and Baerlocher's Baerolub PA-L at 102 to 110 °C (215.6 to 230 °F). The spread of about 20 °C (36 °F) between the two grades follows from molecular weight and crystallinity: longer chains crystallise more completely and melt higher.

The contrast with paraffin is larger than the spread inside the class. Paraffin melts at 54 to 56 °C (129.2 to 132.8 °F) for Baerlocher's L-KM grade, roughly 50 °C (90 °F) lower, and the fully refined paraffin Struktol PE(H)-165 has a dropping point of 67 to 72 °C (152.6 to 161.6 °F), so a wax swap changes when the lubricant becomes active, not only how much is present.

Why molecular weight is the master variable#

Molecular weight is the master variable for a plastics wax: it sets the melting range, the melt viscosity, how much of the wax stays in the compound and how much volatilises onto the die. Mhlabeni, Jamiru and Mhike (2024) report that the lower-molecular-weight paraffin and Fischer-Tropsch waxes tend to exacerbate die drool relative to PE wax.

The distribution matters as much as the average. Radebe and colleagues (2022) measured a Sasol Fischer-Tropsch wax at Mn 776 and Mw 786 Da, a polydispersity of 1.01, against Mn 4,715 and Mw 14,960 Da for a commercial polyethylene wax, a distribution more than ten times as broad. A broad distribution carries a low-molecular-weight fraction, the part that has to be removed during manufacture to avoid a low flash point, migration and equipment build-up.

Which Polymers Use Polyethylene Wax, and at What Dosage?#

PE wax is dosed in fractions of a phr in rigid PVC and in whole percent in filled systems: the US pressure-pipe range composition allows 0.0 to 0.3 phr, while a 60 wt% calcium carbonate masterbatch took 3 wt%. Struktol specifies its PE(H)-100 grade at 1 to 4 % of the compound in elastomers, which places the three main systems, rigid PVC, filler masterbatch and elastomers, across two orders of magnitude of dosage.

How do phr values convert to weight percent? A phr figure is divided by the total phr of the compound and multiplied by 100, so the 0.15 phr of PE wax in the Plastics Pipe Institute's example pressure-pipe compound, whose ingredients add up to 108.03 phr, is 0.14 wt% of the finished material. PVC recipes give PE wax in PHR (parts per hundred resin), which converts to weight percent only with the full compound total.

Table T3. Polyethylene wax dosage by polymer system.

PE wax in rigid PVC pipe compounds#

In a US PVC pressure-pipe compound, PE wax is the smallest lubricant on the list: the Plastics Pipe Institute's range composition in TR-2-2023 allows 0.0 to 0.3 phr, and the worked example in the same document uses 0.15 phr of it against 1.20 phr of paraffin wax. Appendix C gives the full recipe: PVC resin 100, tin heat stabilizer 0.70, calcium stearate 0.45, paraffin wax 1.20, PE wax 0.15, titanium dioxide 0.50, calcium carbonate 5.00 and pigment 0.03, for a total of 108.03 phr in which the resin is 92.57 wt%. The full internal and external balance is set out on lubricants for PVC compounding.

Three lubricants in one compound is a division of labour rather than redundancy. Krzewki and Collins showed in 1981 that paraffin wax delays resin particle breakdown and fusion, and that where wax is present a higher calcium stearate level accelerates fusion instead of delaying it, so the formulator tunes fusion time with the ratio between the three. Struktol's own rigid PVC pipe package follows the same logic, with paraffin at 0.6 to 1.5 phr, calcium stearate at 0.6 to 1.5 phr and an oxidized PE wax at 0.1 to 0.2 phr. The complete pipe, profile, sheet and foam recipes are on rigid PVC formulations.

PE wax in filler masterbatch and color concentrates#

Filler masterbatch is where PE wax earns whole percentage points: in a 60 wt% calcium carbonate LLDPE concentrate studied by Radebe and colleagues (2022), the melt viscosity without additives was 3 times that of the neat polymer. In that study 3 wt% wax with 1.0 wt% zinc stearate returned the viscosity to just above the neat polymer value, and the wax is acting there as a carrier and dispersant rather than as a metal-release agent. Carrier, filler and additive levels for the whole product class are on filler masterbatch.

These figures describe one academic system, not an industry-wide dosage. The wax was paired with 1.0 wt% zinc stearate, the standard second component of a filler concentrate package, and the same study tested a Fischer-Tropsch wax at 3 wt% as a drop-in replacement for it.

PE wax in elastomers and other compounds#

Struktol specifies its PE(H)-100 grade at 1 to 4 % of the compound in elastomers, an order of magnitude above the rigid PVC level. That is the only elastomer figure recorded in our sources for this grade, and rubber compounding is covered on this site only where the same wax serves a plastics function.

What Is Polyethylene Wax Used For? 5 Applications in Plastics#

PE wax does 5 jobs in plastics: external lubrication of rigid PVC, dispersion of fillers and pigments in masterbatch, viscosity reduction in highly filled compounds, release from screws and dies, and hardness and slip modification of the finished surface. The first four are documented in supplier technical literature and in the pipe and masterbatch studies cited here; the fifth rests on an encyclopedia-level source and carries no dosage.

• External lubrication of rigid PVC, in pipe, profile, sheet and siding compounds.
• Dispersion of fillers and pigments in masterbatch and colour concentrates.
• Viscosity reduction in highly filled compounds, such as calcium carbonate concentrates at 60 wt% filler.
• Release from processing equipment, meaning screws, dies and calender rolls.
• Hardness, slip and mould-release modification of the finished surface, roles listed in the Wikipedia entry on polyethylene wax without an associated dosage.

PVC pipe, profile and siding#

PVC pipe, profile and siding are the largest plastics outlet for PE wax, because rigid PVC has a high melt viscosity and a narrow thermal window and cannot be run without an external lubricant film between compound and metal. PVC begins to eliminate hydrogen chloride at 100 to 120 °C (212 to 248 °F) and degrades rapidly near 250 °C (482 °F), so the compound has to fuse and flow inside a band only tens of degrees wide.

PE wax carries the smallest share of that package, 0.15 phr against 1.20 phr of paraffin in the Plastics Pipe Institute compound. The stabilizer, filler and drinking-water side of the same compound is covered under additives for PVC pipe.

Masterbatch, filled compounds and wood-plastic composites#

Filled and wood-filled compounds need far more lubricant than unfilled ones: Struktol specifies its wood-plastic composite packages at 2 to 8 parts in wood-filled PVC and 1 to 6 % of compound in wood-filled polyolefins, as blends rather than as single waxes. Those are package levels for products such as the Struktol TPW grades, and they are never a polyethylene wax dosage on their own.

The mechanism is the one measured in masterbatch: every additional square metre of filler surface has to be wetted before the melt will flow. Why wood flour raises lubricant demand so sharply is explained under additives for wood-plastic composites.

How Does Polyethylene Wax Perform Against Other Lubricants?#

PE wax is the high-melting non-polar lubricant of the standard PVC toolkit: at 102 to 110 °C (215.6 to 230 °F) in Baerlocher's range it stays solid roughly 50 °C (90 °F) longer than paraffin, so it becomes active later in the process and survives further down the screw. The melting ranges in Table T4 come from one supplier's lubricant range, the Baerlocher brochure of 2017, so they are comparable with each other.

Table T4. Melting ranges and lubricating action across the Baerlocher lubricant range.

Footnote: all values from the Baerlocher lubricants brochure (2017). They describe one producer's product range, not the whole market.

Melting order is the practical reading of that table: paraffin and the fatty acids are liquid before fusion begins, PE wax and synthetic paraffin become active during fusion, and the amides act afterwards. Ethylene bis stearamide (EBS) melts higher still, at 138 to 144 °C (280.4 to 291.2 °F), and is the reference chemistry the newer lubricant blends are benchmarked against. Molecular weight works in the same direction as melting point: Mhlabeni, Jamiru and Mhike (2024) report that the lighter paraffin and Fischer-Tropsch waxes tend to exacerbate die drool relative to PE wax.

Too much external lubricant costs more than it buys. At high dosage the Baerlocher matrix records haziness and exudation together with reduced printability, weldability and adhesion, the surface properties a fabricator needs downstream. Too much external lubricant shows up as haze and surface deposit, the mechanism described under blooming and exudation. No coefficient-of-friction, gloss, fusion-time or torque value is recorded in our sources for polyethylene wax.

How Does Polyethylene Wax Interact with Other Additives?#

PE wax is never used alone: in rigid PVC it is one term of a three-part balance with a paraffin and a metal soap, and in masterbatch it is paired with a stearate. PE wax shares the rigid PVC package with the metal stearates, which act on inner friction rather than on metal release. The 3 interactions documented in our sources are listed below.

• Paraffin wax, the bulk external lubricant at 1.20 phr against 0.15 phr of PE wax, which shares the release role and delays fusion.
• Metal stearates, which can accelerate or delay fusion depending on temperature and on whether a wax is present in the compound.
• Zinc stearate in filled masterbatch, at 1.0 wt% beside 3 wt% wax, which restored the melt viscosity of a 60 wt% calcium carbonate concentrate.

The second of those interactions decides a pipe recipe. Krzewki and Collins showed in 1981 that calcium stearate accelerates fusion when a wax is present and can delay it when one is not, so the same stearate level produces opposite results in two otherwise identical compounds.

The failure mode at the other end is deposition: excess external lubricant migrates out faster than the process carries it away, and an unbalanced lubricant package is one of the classic causes of plate-out in PVC processing, the deposit of additive on dies, calender rolls and sizing equipment.

What Is the Regulatory Status of Polyethylene Wax?#

Polyethylene wax is exempt from REACH registration as a polymer, is not on the REACH Candidate List, and is authorised as an additive in EU food-contact plastics as FCM substance 549 without a specific migration limit (status 24 September 2026). Four entries in the matrix below are empty in our sources rather than negative, and they are printed as being verified for that reason: an absent record is not a finding of no restriction.

Table T5. Polyethylene wax regulatory matrix, as of 24 September 2026.

Is polyethylene wax REACH registered?#

No, and it does not need to be: polyethylene wax is a polymer, and polymers are exempt from REACH registration under Article 2(9) of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, which is why no registration dossier appears under CAS 9002-88-4 in ECHA's database. A buyer checking compliance looks at two other documents instead, the registration of the monomer used to make the polymer and the supplier's own written compliance statement for the grade. An empty dossier search for a polymer is the expected result, not a red flag. How the polymer exemption sits inside the wider regime is explained under REACH and plastic additives.

Is polyethylene wax approved for food contact?#

Yes in the EU: polyethylene wax is listed in Annex I of Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 as FCM substance 549 (Ref 80000) with no specific migration limit, which means only the overall migration limit of 10 mg/dm2 constrains it. An entry without an SML is not an unrestricted entry: the overall limit, the purity requirements and the declaration of compliance still apply. What an Annex I listing without an SML actually obliges a converter to do is set out on EU 10/2011. The neighbouring waxes carry tighter entries: oxidized PE wax is FCM 811 with an SML of 60 mg/kg, polypropylene wax is FCM 550, and refined low-viscosity paraffin is FCM 93 with an SML of 0.05 mg/kg and is not permitted for fatty foods.

The US status of the non-oxidized wax is being verified and is not stated here, because the clearances at 21 CFR 177.1620 and 21 CFR 172.260 belong to the oxidized wax. The difference between a 21 CFR listing, an FCN and no clearance at all is explained under FDA food contact rules for plastic additives.

Is Polyethylene Wax Safe? Health, Safety and Environmental Profile#

No harmonised hazard classification for polyethylene wax is recorded in our sources, and the substance is not on the REACH Candidate List, but absence of a record is not the same as a clean assessment, so the supplier's safety data sheet remains the governing document. The distinction matters for a compliance file: this page reports the state of its own sources, not a finding of no hazard.

The two halves of the picture are set out below.

• What is recorded: no place on the REACH Candidate List, a food-contact listing as FCM 549 without a specific migration limit, and a processing caveat on the low-molecular-weight fraction.
• What is not recorded: any GHS or CLP classification, any US TSCA or California Proposition 65 entry, and any toxicological endpoint such as an LD50 or a NOAEL.

The one substantive processing-safety fact in our sources concerns manufacture. Grades made by degrading or fractionating high-molecular-weight polyethylene need the lightest fraction removed, because that fraction causes a low flash point, migration out of the compound and build-up on equipment. The lightest wax fractions are the ones that leave the compound, the process covered under additive migration in plastics.

What Are the Alternatives to Polyethylene Wax?#

The 4 direct alternatives to PE wax are its own oxidized form (OPE), paraffin wax, Fischer-Tropsch wax and montan wax, and they differ mainly in polarity and molecular weight, which is what decides metal release per phr. Polarity decides how strongly the wax anchors to hot steel, molecular weight decides when it melts and how much of it volatilises, and the food-contact entry differs for every one of them.

Table T6. Polyethylene wax against its 4 alternatives.

Footnote: Fischer-Tropsch wax identifiers and food-contact status are still being verified and are deliberately left blank.

PE wax vs oxidized PE wax (OPE)#

Oxidation is the whole difference: OPE carries polar carboxyl groups that anchor to hot metal, so it delivers strong metal release at 0.07 to 0.3 phr, while non-oxidized PE wax is the cheaper, purely non-polar workhorse. The oxidized grade also runs hotter and denser: a dropping point of 131 °C (267.8 °F) and a specific gravity of 0.96 for Struktol PE(O)-300, against 90 to 105 °C (194 to 221 °F) and 0.91 for PE(H)-100.

The regulatory consequence runs against intuition. Oxidized polyethylene wax (OPE) carries the polar groups, the SML of 60 mg/kg and the US clearances that the non-oxidized grade does not, OPE is FCM 811 in the EU and is cleared at 21 CFR 177.1620 and 21 CFR 172.260 in the United States, while PE wax has neither an SML nor a recorded US clearance. The plainer substance is here the harder one to document.

PE wax vs paraffin wax#

PE wax and paraffin wax are both non-polar external lubricants, but PE wax has roughly ten times the molecular weight and melts about 50 °C (90 °F) higher, which is why a pipe compound uses paraffin as the bulk lubricant and PE wax as the smaller, later-melting partner. Mhlabeni, Jamiru and Mhike (2024) place paraffin at about 200 to 1,000 g/mol against up to about 10,000 g/mol for polyethylene wax, which is the correct direction of the comparison and the reverse of what the wax-trading pages ranking for this query state.

The two appear together rather than as substitutes. Paraffin wax carries the bulk of the external lubrication in a pipe compound, at 1.20 phr against 0.15 phr of PE wax, and the lighter wax is the one that exacerbates die drool.

PE wax vs Fischer-Tropsch wax#

Fischer-Tropsch wax is the narrow-distribution synthetic paraffin: the grade Radebe and colleagues (2022) measured had a polydispersity of 1.01, at Mn 776 and Mw 786 Da, against a commercial PE wax with a molecular weight distribution more than ten times as broad. Mhlabeni, Jamiru and Mhike (2024) record that Fischer-Tropsch wax is mainly produced by Sasol in South Africa, and in the Baerlocher range a synthetic paraffin melts at 100 to 105 °C (212 to 221 °F), close to the PE wax band.

The two are interchangeable in at least one documented system: Fischer-Tropsch wax was tested as a drop-in at the same 3 wt% loading in the 60 wt% calcium carbonate masterbatch. Its CAS number, EC number and food-contact status are still being verified.

PE wax vs montan wax#

Montan wax is the polar, natural counterpart to PE wax: a solvent extract of lignite that is 62 to 68 % long-chain esters and 22 to 26 % acids, which is what gives it the release performance PE wax cannot match in engineering plastics. Alcohols and hydrocarbons make up the remaining 7 to 15 %, the crude wax melts at 82 to 95 °C (179.6 to 203 °F), and the deposits worked are Amsdorf in Germany, Ione in California, and Yunnan and Jilin in China.

The food-contact position is split across two entries. Montan wax is the polar, lignite-derived alternative, listed as FCM 529 for the crude wax and FCM 67 for montanic acids and their esters, and the US rule at 21 CFR 178.3770 allows those esters as lubricants for PVC food-contact articles at a dropping point of 76 to 105 °C (168.8 to 221 °F).

Who Manufactures Polyethylene Wax? Grades and Suppliers#

Polyethylene wax for plastics is supplied by lubricant specialists rather than by the polyethylene producers: Struktol, Baerlocher and Solstice Advanced Materials, which took over Honeywell's A-C performance additives brand when the Advanced Materials business was spun off in 2025. More producers, distributors and their locations are in the directory of PE wax and polymer wax manufacturers.

Table T7. Polyethylene wax producers, trade names and recorded grade data.

Footnote: trade names for PE wax and oxidized PE wax are frequently listed together by distributors; check whether a quoted grade is oxidized. We list a company only where our source library records it.

Buyers should ask for the grade's melting range, specific gravity and molecular-weight data on the technical data sheet, because CAS 9002-88-4 alone does not identify a grade. No verifiable public market-size or price figure for polyethylene wax is recorded in our sources, so none is printed here; what moves the PE wax price between grades and origins is tracked separately.

Where Do Polyolefin Waxes Fit in the Lubricant Family?#

Polyethylene wax is the heaviest of the hydrocarbon lubricants, the non-polar branch of a family that also contains the fatty acids, the metal soaps, the esters and the bis-amides. The hydrocarbon branch holds 6 members: paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax (EC 264-038-1), Fischer-Tropsch wax, polyethylene wax, polypropylene wax and oxidized polyethylene wax. Polarity is what separates the branch from its neighbours, and molecular weight is what orders the members inside it. The four polymer waxes used in plastics are compared as a class on their own page.

Polypropylene wax and the other polyolefin waxes#

Polypropylene wax (CAS 9003-07-0) is the propylene analogue of PE wax and carries its own food-contact entry, FCM substance 550 (Ref 81060), in Annex I of Regulation (EU) No 10/2011. No melting point, dosage, producer or mechanism for polypropylene wax is recorded in our sources, so this page states its identity and its food-contact number and stops there. Microcrystalline wax, the other member of the hydrocarbon branch not covered above, carries EC number 264-038-1.

Non-plastics markets for PE wax (outside the scope of this site)#

Most of the pages that rank for "polyethylene wax" sell it into coatings, printing inks, hot-melt adhesives, candles and cosmetics; those markets are outside the scope of this reference, which covers plastics additives only. Nothing on this page, including the melting ranges, the dosages and the food-contact entry, is written for or transferable to those uses.

Is polyethylene wax safe for skin?#

This reference does not assess cosmetic safety: polyethylene wax appears in cosmetic ingredient databases under a separate regulatory framework, and nothing on this page transfers to that use. The food-contact and REACH entries above govern plastics, not personal-care products.

What is the HS code for polyethylene wax?#

No HS code for polyethylene wax is recorded in our sources, so none is printed here; ask the supplier for the code on the commercial invoice. A guessed customs heading on a shipping document costs more than an unanswered question.

Does PE wax need an SDS?#

Yes: suppliers provide a safety data sheet for polyethylene wax as for any traded chemical, even though no harmonised classification for it is recorded in our sources. A data sheet reporting no classification in section 2 still records identity, handling, storage and the supplier assessment.