Toray Industries (Tokyo / Japan; www.toray.com) has announced it will establish a new facility for producing separator film for lithium-ion batteries in Nyergesújfalu / Hungary. The new plant will be part of Toray Industries Hungary, which was established in April 2018, and is scheduled to start operating in July 2021. The Toray group’s total battery separator film production capacity is expected to be boosted by approximately 20%.

The group has existing battery separator film production sites in Nasu / Japan and Gumi / South Korea operating under Toray Battery Separator Film Korea. Both locations received capacity expansions in 2018.

Demand for battery separator films is projected to expand rapidly worldwide, according to Toray, with steady upward trends in mobile electronics, energy storage systems and electric vehicles. The Japanese group anticipates that in Europe, where environmental awareness is increasing, e-cars will rapidly spread.

In early 2019, Toray announced an investment in a production line for oriented polypropylene film – see Plasteurope.com of 14.02.2019. The line has a capacity of 30,000 t/y and will start operations in 2020.