Japanese Firms Plan Polymers In Korea

The Japanese companies Toray Industries and Teijin are setting up polyphenylene sulfide facilities in South Korea. Toray will spend $175 million to build an 8,600-metric-ton-per-year PPS plant in Gunsan. The facility will produce sodium hydrogen sulfide and p-dichlorobenzene, the two main raw materials for the engineering plastic. Toray, which calls itself the world’s largest producer of PPS, expects the facility to open in 2016. Meanwhile, together with its South Korean partner SK Chemicals, Teijin has started building a 12,000-metric-ton PPS plant in Ulsan. The venture will implement a new process developed by SK that uses neither chlorine nor benzene.