PPS Planned Via New Route

SK Chemicals and Teijin are setting up a venture to produce the engineering plastic polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) by 2015. The companies, based in South Korea and Japan, respectively, are aiming for a 20% global market share, partly by using Teijin’s experience as an engineering plastic compounder and distributor. The venture’s PPS will be produced via a new SK-developed process. Unlike the standard process, which relies on p-dichlorobenzene as an intermediate, SK’s method is free of both benzene and chlorine, according to a Seoul-based SK executive. The two companies intend to build a 12,000-metric-ton-per-year plant in South Korea that could be expanded to 20,000 metric tons. The companies will premarket the polymer from an existing pilot plant. Global output of PPS—produced by firms such as Chevron Phillips Chemical, Fortron Industries, and Toray Industries—was 94,000 metric tons in 2012, SK says. Highly resistant to both heat and chemicals, PPS competes with metal in various applications.