Plastics News Daily Report - May 10, 2018 - 26

26 ‹ PLASTICS NEWS DAILY REPORT ‹ May 10, 2018

Teknor Apex growing in Germany, US
Teknor Apex Co. is having a solid 2018 as it tends to grow projects in Germany, Tennessee and
Rhode Island.
The Pawtucket, R.I.-based compounding firm will break ground
in the next 60 days for a new plant
in Rothenburg, Germany, President William Murray said in a May
8 interview at NPE2018. The plant
should be in production by the
end of 2019.
Teknor also recently added a
new PVC compounding line at
its plant in Brownsville, Tenn. In
Rhode Island, the firm now is using a new 30,000-square-foot engineering building and conference
center not far from its headquarters in Pawtucket.
So far in 2018, Teknor "is continuing to grow, but competition is
as tough as ever," Murray said. He
added that demand from the automotive market "has backed off a
little," but that business in the wire
and cable and building and construction sectors is doing well.
New construction is driving
volume demand growth, senior
vice president Lou Cappucci said,
adding that Teknor was seeing
more orders for halogen-free compounds for wire and cable.

Plastics News photo by Michael A. Marcotte

By Frank Esposito
Plastics News Staff

From left, Louis Capucci, senior vice president; Sachin Sakhalkar, business manager of the Americas for
TPE; Michael Roberts, vice president; and William Murray, president of Teknor Apex Co., in the company's
booth.
In the automotive sector, the
firm's engineering resin compounds were seeing growth in
metal replacements for powertrains and other high-tempera-

ture applications, according to
Vice President Michael Roberts.
"There's been a tremendous
amount of innovation in powertrains," he said. "We're seeing

parts that couldn't be made before. These materials now are
easier to process, and they flow
well."
Medical market growth also has

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been solid for Teknor, according to
Americas TPE Business Manager
Sachin Sakhalkar. The firm's Medalist-brand line of medical TPEs are
being used in a range of medical
applications, including as a PVC replacement in medical tubing.
Murray pointed out that although the firm offers PVC replacements, it still produces PVC
compounds.
"We want to be polymer neutral," he said. "We want to give
our customers options, even
within PVC.
"We don't want to dictate to the
market. Whatever material our
customers need, that's what we'll
give them," Murray added.
Teknor also is "always out
there" looking for acquisitions,
Murray said. The firm has made
two acquisitions since 2014, most
recently purchasing compounder
PTS GmbH of Steinsfeld, Germany,
in early 2016. The PTS business
will move to the Rothenburg plant
when it opens.
"We're interested in plastic
businesses that complement a geography or market or polymer for
us anywhere in the world," Murray said.

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