US chemical producer Huntsman (The Woodlands, Texas; www.huntsman.com) has officially dedicated its new 22,000 t/y plant for aromatic polyester polyols marketed under the “Terol” brand name. The facility, which started up in May this year at the company’s systems house in Kuan Yin / Taiwan, expands its downstream polyurethanes capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. This is also Huntsman first plant for these polyols outside the US.

Huntsman’s proprietary process upcycles scrap bottle-grade PET to produce the polyols used in production of MDI-based polyurethane insulation systems. Insulation products based on Terol include polyisocyanurate (PIR) boardstock systems, spray polyurethane foam (SPF) and pour-in-place applications, including entry doors, garage doors, coolers, refrigerators and commercial freezers.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, CEO Peter Huntsman said the new facility, together with its US sister plant in Houston, Texas, enables the company to “participate on a global scale in the shared responsibility to clean up our environment and do more with less.” At Houston, Huntsman processes the equivalent of 1 bn 500-ml PET bottles annually. It also manufactures polyols from scrap PET bottles at its Canadian Huntsman Building Solutions site in Boisbriand, Quebec.

Tony Hankins, president of Huntsman’s polyurethanes business and CEO of Asia-Pacific, said Taiwan is “a critically important base for achieving the company’s strategic objectives in the region, which are focused on moving downstream and creating more differentiated solutions for customers.” With the establishment of Huntsman Building Solutions through integration of two recently acquired major SPF businesses (see Plasteurope.com of 17.12.2019) he said the chemical producer is now able to effectively supply energy-efficient SPF systems to customers throughout Asia-Pacific, where it see significant growth opportunities for SPF in the cold chain, modern agriculture and the insulation of buildings.