Kureha (Tokyo / Japan; www.kureha.co.jp) said it would invest JPY 10 bn (EUR 77m) to expand by nearly half the 10,700 t/y capacity of polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) at its Iwaki plant in Fukushima prefecture in Japan.

Operation is expected to begin in February 2021. PPS demand has been growing for industrial applications requiring high heat resistance and workability, particularly for automotive electronics and lightweight solutions, it said. The plant in Iwaki has been operating at full capacity in recent years.

Kureha said it would continue to collaborate with Polyplastics (Tokyo; www.polyplastics.com) to “maintain its advantageous position” in the PPS market . Polyplastics expanded its compounding capacity for PPS and POM in Malaysia in 2016 – see Plasteurope.com of 28.01.2016.

Interestingly, Kureha has close ties not only with Polyplastics, a joint venture between Celanese (Dallas, Texas / USA; www.celanese.com) and Daicel (Osaka / Japan; www.daicel.com), but also with Celanese itself. Kureha and Celanese own the 50:50 joint venture Fortron Industries (Florence, Kentucky / USA).

Despite joint ownership in Polyplastics, Celanese and Daicel have been battling for supremacy in the global PPS market since 2012, when both dissolved a distribution agreement – see Plasteurope.com of 20.07.2012. Polyplastics has been intensively penetrating the European market, while Celanese has targeted the automotive sectors in Asia, Polyplastics’ home market – see Plasteurope.com of 20.07.2015.