Korea LG Chem buys remaining stake in LG Dow Polycarbonate

HOUSTON (ICIS) -- South Korean producer LG Chem has bought Dow Chemical's 50% stake in their joint venture, LG Dow Polycarbonate, Dow said on Tuesday.

LG Chem now owns all of LG Dow Polycarbonate, Dow Chemical said. Most likely, LG Dow will operate under the name LG Polycarbonate and continue serving its current customers and markets.

The two companies established the joint venture in early 1999 and started production in 2001, LG-Dow said.

In 2007, the joint venture added a second train to its site at Yeosu, South Korea, increasing capacity to 170,000 tonnes/year, LG-Dow said.

MRC


Post-consumer PET recycler plans new $25 million Indiana facility

(Plasticstoday) -- Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles recycler Perpetual Recycling Solutions will invest more than $25 million to purchase and repurpose an existing 100,000-ft2 facility in Richmond, IN into a new production facility. Founded in 1989 as Pure Tech Plastics LLC, the company converts plastic soda, juice, and water bottles into flake and resin pellets. Perpetual Recycling Solutions is a subsidiary of Chicago's ReThink Recycling Group, which has an additional facility in East Farmingdale, NY.

Perpetual Recycling Solutions says the new facility will convert approximately 130 million lb of post-consumer PET annually, purchasing scrap from a number of sources.

MRC


SABIC adds PP compounding to MS site

(PlasticsToday) -- SABIC Innovative Plastics (Pittsfield, MA) is adding polypropylene (PP) compounding to its Bay St. Louis, MS site, including planned production of its Stamax long-glass-fiber-reinforced PP composites, with an eye on the automotive market. SABIC officials noted that the combination of SABIC Innovative Plastics engineering thermoplastics portfolio, with the specialty polypropylene (PP) the company added in 2002, gives it a materials range that covers 60% of the plastics currently used in automotive.



For the new PP capacity, the company will convert existing compounding lines at the Bay St. Louis operation, which originally supported SABIC's acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) business, to run glass, mineral, and long-glass fiber PP compounds.

MRC


Japan's Chiyoda bags deal to build Malaysian silicon plant

TOKYO (ICIS)--Japan's engineering firm Chiyoda Corp said on Wednesday it has secured a deal to build a 6,000 tonnes/year polycrystalline silicon plant for solar cells in Malaysia, for chemical producer Tokuyama Corp.

The amount of the engineering, procurement and construction contract was not disclosed.

Construction of the plant in Samalaju in Sarawak state would begin next year, with the plant start-up slated in 2013, Chiyoda said in a statement.

In August 2010, Tokuyama had estimated the cost of building the plant, along with related utility facilities and infrastructure, at yen (Y) 80bn ($961m).



MRC


BASF receives CPhI Silver Innovation Awards

(BASF) -- Soluplus, the polymeric solubilizer from BASF, presented for the first time in 2009 as an innovative excipient, has now won the Silver Innovation Award at CPhI worldwide, the Convention on Pharmaceutical Ingredients and Intermediates. As a matrix polymer, the Solid Solution forms solid solutions with poorly soluble active ingredients and enhances their bioavailability.



BASF's Soluplus helps customers in the pharmaceutical industry develop and produce innovative drug products containing active ingredients that could not have been formulated with conventional excipients. Soluplus is especially designed for pharmaceuticals produced by hot melt extrusion. The technology is becoming increasingly important because it is suitable for formulating novel drug substances, which are in many cases barely soluble and poorly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract.

MRC