Toray (Tokyo; www.toray.com) says it plans to expand its capacity for polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) base polymer in South Korea by December 2024. At the site of the subsidiary Toray Advanced Materials Korea in Gunsan, another plant for the high-performance polymer with a capacity of 5,000 t/y is to be built.

Toray expects the polymer, which is important for automotive and electronics applications, to grow by 6% per year. The producer intends to use the additional volume to supply its own compounding plants and, above all, to serve markets in Asia.

The line running in Gunsan can currently produce 8,600 t/y of Torelina brand PPS. Added to this is the second plant with a capacity of 19,000 t/y in Tokai, Japan, which makes Toray the world’s largest producer, alongside China’s Sichuan Deyang Chemical (Lumena), which can produce similar quantities. The two together will – once the expansions at Toray are completed – account for about a third of the world’s total capacity of just under 200,000 t/y, according to Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe database (www.polyglobe.net).