Saudi Kayan has signed USD 130 million contract with China's Sinopec

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- Saudi Kayan has signed USD 130 million contract with China's Sinopec to build a natural alcohol plant in Saudi Arabia, Kayan said in a statement. ⌠The production capacity of the plant will be 50 KTa of natural alcohol (detergents) and is expected to start during the second half of 2013, said Mutlaq al-Morished, chairman of the board, EVP finance of SABIC.

⌠The signed contract included the detailed engineering work, procurement, construction and commissioning, said al-Morished. ⌠It is a lump sum turnkey contract, he added.

The plant will be located at al-Jubail Industrial City, on the eastern coast of the Kingdom. ⌠The plant will meet part of SABIC's commitment to diversify into oleochemicals using renewable feedstocks and increase its performance chemicals portfolio, Kayan said in the statement.

MRC

(Arabian Oil and Gas) -- Evonik Industries and Tasnee's subsidiary Saudi Acrylic Acid Company (SAAC) have established a joint venture called Saudi Acrylic Polymers Company (SAPCo) for the production of superabsorbents.

The production facility has a production is capacity of 80 KTa scheduled to begin production in late 2013. ⌠The total investment will be USD 373.3m (SAR1.4bn), Tasnee said in a statement.

The SAPCo superabsorbent production is part of a new acrylic acid and derivative complex on the Tasnee premises of the Al Jubail chemical park in Saudi Arabia and will benefit from the subsidised propylene price from the adjacent cracking facility operated jointly by Tasnee, Sahara, and Lyondell Basell.

The joint venture will be equipped with state-of-the-art Evonik superabsorbent technology and will benefit from the advantageous local source materials supply. The acrylic acid for the production of superabsorbents will come from an adjoining SAMCO facility.

MRC

(Nanowerk) -- IMRE has developed a new polymer that not only produces a high charge mobility of 0.2 cm2/V.s, which is the same value achieved by commercially available semiconducting materials but also has a high solar power conversion efficiency of 6.3%. This makes IMRE's polymer one of the few that has both these properties. In addition to this, polymers of the same class as IMRE's, which are those that use thiophene and benzothiadiazole as the building blocks, could only achieve 2.2% power conversion.

The polymer can also be easily applied in roll-to-roll printing techniques which is similar to how newspapers are currently printed making it possible to manufacture large area-scale printed electronics and organic solar cells quickly and cheaply.

With IMRE's polymer, manufacturers could save cost using just a single bulk resource for making both printed electronics and organic solar cells. The material could also possibly be used in designing new devices where both power harnessing and electronics are needed in a single component. An example of this would be chemical sensors based on organic thin-film transistors and powered by organic solar cells.

The IMRE team is developing other organic materials-based polymers that can be scaled up to production and integrated easily into organic electronics. These materials can be used to make energy harvesting and low-power consumption devices like low-cost organic solar cells, new flexible display

MRC

(PlastEurope) -- Making its first foray into the biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film market, India's SRF has ordered a new 8.7 metre wide BOPP line from Germany's Bruckner. The new EUR 40m line will be located in Durban / South Africa.

SRF claims to be India's second largest thin PET film manufacturer, with overall capacity for 60 KTa. The group operates plants manufacturing technical textiles in Dubai / United Arab Emirates, Port Elizabeth / South Africa and Rayong / Thailand. Over the past four years, the group has invested roughly EUR 200m into expandings its Technical Fabrics, Chemicals & Polymers and Packaging Films business units.

MRC

(PlastEurope) -- Leading international beer brands Heineken and Amstel are now available in four litre PET kegs in The Netherlands. The new ⌠Tapje small draft-beer system was developed together with APPE, formerly Artenius PET Packaging, a member of Spanish PET giant La Seda de Barcelona, which supplies the kegs. The breweries plan to launch the new system in other countries as well.

The PET container is said to be an innovative cost-effective alternative to traditional beer crates. It features APPE's ⌠monoBLOX barrier technology with oxygen scavengers, which guarantee a robust container with what the Wrexham-based company calls ⌠superior barrier performance that protects the integrity of the beer by keeping out oxygen whilst keeping in the carbonation. Once open, the beer reportedly remains fresh for 30 days.

MRC