Japanese materials firm DIC Corp. plans to open its first polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) compounding plant in China by the end of 2015.
Tokyo-based DIC will spend almost $13 million on the plant, which will be located in Zhangjiagang and will have annual production capacity of about 13 million pounds.
In a news release, DIC officials said the plant will use a state-of-the-art production control system that enables integrated computerized control of production lines and monitoring processes. This system will help to improve the safety and precision of production activities, as well as to increase efficiency and yield rates, they said. A similar system already is in place at DIC's PPS compounding site in Austria.
Officials said DIC already has a 20 percent share of Chinese PPS compound sales through imports of compounds made at plants in Japan and Malaysia. The Chinese plant is expected to increase that share to 35 percent, they said.
DIC earlier this year also opened a new technical center in Shanghai. The center will provide broad-based customer support, including in the fabrication of metal molds and the molding of PPS compounds, officials said. They added that although global PPS compound demand is growing at a 6-8 percent rate, growth in China is even higher at 10 percent.
The new Chinese plant will increase DIC's global PPS compounding capacity to almost 90 million pounds per year. The plant would be DIC's first new PPS compounding site since the Austrian plant opened in 2012.