Plastics News 2017 Show Daily - October 20, 2017 - 12

12 * Plastics News, October 20, 2017

FAKUMA SHOW DAILY

Solvay SA has launched several new specialty resin grades
and added a compounding line
in Mexico.
The Brussels-based materials maker was spotlighting two
grades of its Ixef-brand polyacrylamide (PARA) resin at Fakuma. The first is a super-stiff
grade reinforced by carbon fiber and glass fiber. It's finding a
home in high-end auto parts, as
well as in digital cameras, Tom
Wood, specialty polymers executive vice president, said at Fakuma.
The other new Ixef grade is a
50 percent glass fiber material
that can be colored orange to be
used in signal applications, such
as high-voltage areas of electric
vehicles. The material is easily
colorable, Wood said.
Solvay also has added thermal management options for
its Ryton-brand PPS and Amodel-brand PPA, primarily for auto
applications.
"The share per car for our materials is increasing, as suppliers
look for higher temperature, lower
weight and higher performance,"
Wood said. "Since we make both
PPS and PPA, we can use either
one, based on which material best
fits the application."
He added that Solvay has increased Ryton production in

Plastics News photo by Caroline Seidel

By Frank Esposito
Plastics News Staff

Tom Wood, Solvay SA's specialty polymers executive vice president.

Solvay SA
Hall B4, Booth 4213
Borger, Texas, since acquiring
the business from Chevron Phillips Chemical in 2014.
The new compounding line
is making compounds based on
Solvay's Technyl-brand nylon
resins at a location in San Luis
Potosí, Mexico. It opened in
July and has annual production
capacity of around 22 million
pounds.
The line is located near a plant
operated by Chunil Engineering,
a longtime automotive customer

Temperature control.
Individual.
Flexible.
Best performance.

Winner of 2017 Export Award.

of Solvay. Solvay's has a pending
deal to sell its nylon business to
BASF SE.
New grades of Technyl were
in focus at Fakuma. Technyl
Red S is a high-temperature
nylon 6/6/6 used in air coolers
and air ducts in turbocharged
auto systems. The materials can
boost engine performance, engineering plastics director Gerald
Durski said at Fakuma.
Technyl Blue is a blend of nylon 6/6 and 6/10 that's used in
engine cooling systems. Durski
said the new materials offer
higher performance in tensile
strength, as well as good glycol
resistance.

Plastics News photo by Caroline Seidel

Solvay adds specialty grades,
Mexican compounding line

Jens Kaatze, Covestro AG's senior vice president and head of product
management polycarbonate business.

Covestro expects
above-market growth
for PC business
By Shahrzad Pourriahi
Plastics News Europe
Having just celebrated its second
year as an independent company,
Leverkusen, Germany-based Covestro AG expects its polycarbonates
business to continue to outgrow
the market.
According to Jens Kaatze, who
has recently taken over the commercial operations for the Europe,
Middle East, Africa and Latin America region for the polycarbonate
business unit, the global market for
polycarbonates is expected grow at
roughly 4 percent in this decade.
For the business, 2016 saw a 10.3
percent increase in volumes at 1.5
million metric tons with sales of
roughly 3.3 billion euros, covering
one-third of the company's total
sales.
The segment, which is Covestro's
second biggest after polyurethanes,
saw particularly sharp increases
in Asia Pacific and North America
with demand from electrical and
electronics among the main growth
drivers.
"We doubled our capacity in
Shanghai from 200 kilotons per
annum to 400 kilotons per annum
and were basically sold out within
the first half-year, which was even
unheard of for us. So we immediately went back to the drawing board
and planned to expand that unit
even further," Kaatze said.
The company announced its decision to add another 200 kilotons
per year of capacity to the plant in
May, expecting to start production
by 2019.
To maintain the momentum, the
Covestro senior manager said, the
company is looking into expanding all its other production units
around the world.
This includes measures like
debottlenecking its five globally
spread PC resin plants.
The procedures could include logistics improvements or enhanced
wastewater treatment, which are
relatively cheap but can bring
about significant capacity improvements, Kaatze said.
A concern for Covestro is a recent decision by the European
Chemicals Agency to list bisphenol

Covestro AG
Hall B4, Booth 4206
A - a building block of polycarbonates - as a "Substance of Very High
Concern."
"We take this seriously. It is a
threat to any company if someone
wants to regulate one of its components. What the ECHA does in this
context is looking into the intrinsic
properties of BPA and not its possible effects at realistic conditions,"
Kaatze said.
"So it is looking at the hazard of
BPA per se, but is not looking at
how likely it is to actually become
a risk in reality," the official added.
According to Kaatze, it is a matter of thresholds, and both industry-sponsored and independent
studies have shown that there is no
risk for consumers coming from real-life BPA exposure.
As for bioalternatives to BPA,
Kaatze said research so far has not
found an alternative to replace BPA.
In terms of growing trends in
the industry, lightweighting particularly within the automotive and
electronics segments stands out for
Kaatze.
The company purchased a startup composites manufacturer Thermoplast Composite GmbH (TCG)
in Langenfeld, Germany, two years
ago and has now scaled up production of continuous-reinforced
composites, which can be used for
many purposes, including automotive and IT.
The production plant in Markt
Bibart, Germany, has now been
scaled up to a commercial level and
is set to be officially started in early
2018.
While supplying to the automotive industry will take a while to
be established, Kaatze first sees
growth potential in IT, laptop covers and similar applications.
In addition to composites, the
Covestro manager also pointed to
two other major applications for
polycarbonates: LED lights, where
various components can be made
of polycarbonates, and the advent
of 5G in telecommunications.

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