Engineering plastics company Polyplastics (Tokyo / Japan; www.polyplastics.com) said it will begin selling polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) resins worldwide. The resins will be sold under a new name, “Durafide”, by the middle of next year. The group said it would discontinue the current “Fortron” name. The company, a joint venture between Japan’s Daicel (Tokyo; www.daicel.com) and Ticona (Kelsterbach / Germany; www.ticona.de), said the superior thermostability and dimensional stability of PPS resins make them suitable for automotive, electrical, electronic, fibres, films and household equipment applications.

Polyplastics will sell the Durafide resins together with “Duracon” POM resins and “Duranex” PBT resins. Under an agreement with Ticona, Polyplastics said it will continue to sell Duracon and Duranex resins worldwide but stop selling three other resins, “Celcon” POM, “Hostaform” POM and “Celanex” PBT, from 30 September 2012. Polyplastics will also conduct sales of “Vectra” liquid crystal polymers (LCP) in Asia Pacific. Ticona will sell Celcon, Hostaform, Celanex and Vectra worldwide, including Asia Pacific.

Polyplastics also announced plans to grow its US business by creating a sales subsidiary in the Detroit area in Michigan. The subsidiary, which will be launched on 1 July 2012, will target mainly Japanese automotive companies operating in the USA and US companies operating in Asia.