Topic summary
Diisocyanate
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Isocyanate.
Commercial isocyanates
The simplest isocyanate, methyl isocyanate (MIC), is used in the manufacture of pesticides. Diisocyanates are produced on a particularly large scale because they are precursors to polyurethanes. The global market for diisocyanates in the year 2000 was 4.4 million tonnes, of which 61.3% was methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), 34.1% was toluene diisocyanate (TDI), 3.4% was the total for hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) and isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), and 1.2% was the total for various others.