Polycarbonate JV between Styron and Sumitomo to be renamed

(Styron) -- The 50:50 joint venture between Styron and Sumitomo Chemical is being renamed Sumika Styron Polycarbonate Limited (SSPC). Company name change activities are underway and are expected to be fully effective as of April 1, 2011.

Styron announced in October that it assumed ownership of the 50 percent share that was formerly owned by The Dow Chemical Company, following Dow's divestiture of Styron to Bain Capital Partners in June 2010.

The joint venture will continue to be headquartered in Tokyo, and will continue to serve its customers and market polycarbonate products in Asia Pacific.

MRC

(BASF) -- As producer of Epotal Eco, BASF shall forthwith be able to offer the first compostable water-based adhesive certified by the German Technical Inspection Agency TUV.

⌠Biologically degradable adhesives will play a decisive role in the future when it comes to developing compostable packaging materials, says Cornelis Beyers from Marketing Industrial Adhesives.

Epotal Eco is particularly suitable for the production of multi-layer films for flexible packaging materials based on biodegradable plastics. Possible applications are bags for potato chips or chocolate bar wrappings.

MRC

(BASF) -- BASF is now introducing onto the market a new XPS (extruded polystyrene rigid foam, brand name Styrodur C) that has an around 20 % better lambda value than competitive products. BASF researchers made this major leap in insulation performance by integrating into the XPS finely-dispersed graphite particles which absorb the heat radiation and reflect it like a mirror.

BASF invented the technology in 1995 for its gray expandable polystyrene Neopor (EPS). That is the reason why the new XPS insulation panels are called Styrodur Neo and are available in gray.

Because of the higher insulation performance, which is achieved by the in-built infrared absorbers, the thickness of the panels can be reduced accordingly. Thus, Styrodur Neo is particularly suitable for the insulation of building interiors on walls, floors and ceilings but also for the insulation of thermal bridges and cavity walls.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Total imports of polypropylene (PP) to the Russian market in December beat the next historical maximum and exceeded 27 KT, according to MRC analysts.

December became record in relation to imports volumes to the Russian market of PP. Despite the seasonal reduction in demand, the Russian companies imported more than 27 KT of polymer.

The main gain in the volume of external supplies accounted for homopolymer of propylene. As we have noticed, in the last quarter of 2010 the Russian companies activated polymer purchases in Turkmenistan.

At the end of October-December more than 30 KT were contracted for supplies to
Russia, at that only last month more than 143 KT of raffia were contracted. PP supplies from Ukraine grew up to 4 KT. In whole, summarizing December, about 17 KT of homopolymer propylene were supplied to the Russian market against seasonal reduction in demand and high sales from the Russian producers.

Import supplies of copolymer propylene remained in the level of November. At that it should be noticed that about 700 T of blown lock copolymer of propylene unexpectedly occurred in the Russian market from North America by Pinnacle Polymers production.

Summarizing 2010, gain in PP imports to Russia made about 50% compared to 2009 up to 200 KT. The most considerable gain in supplies fell at raffia, also the supplies of blown copolymers of propylene grew bigger by half.

MRC

(Plastics News) -- Plastics recycler Envision Plastics has moved into full scale production of its EcoPrime-brand food grade high density polyethylene recycled resin at its plant in Reidsville and plans to double its capacity by adding another 18 million pounds of capacity later this year at its plant in Chino, Calif.

EcoPrime is the only recycled HDPE in the United States that has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for use in food and beverage packaging. It is currently being used in packaging for nutritional supplements, food storage containers, beverages and some personal care products.

Envision recycles roughly 110 million pounds of plastics annually. It uses a patented cleaning process to makes its food-grade recycled resin from natural-colored HDPE containers such as milk and water bottles collected at curbside.

MRC