Invista has completed a 40,000-ton per year nylon 6.6 polymer capacity expansion at its plant at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP), bringing the plant’s capacity to 190,000 tons annually.
“This new polymer capacity is part of Invista’s strategic investments to supply the strong local and regional demand for high-quality nylon products,” Angela Dou, Invista’s Asia Pacific regional business director for nylon polymer, said. “We estimate China could become the world’s largest consumer of nylon 6.6 in the next few years, with many growth sectors, including an increased demand for engineering polymers used in automotive, electrical and engineering markets.”
This expansion is Invista’s fourth continuous polymerization line at SCIP, where the company now has 30,000-ton per year autoclaves and 160,000-tons annual continuous process nylon 6.6 polymer capacity.
“The additional polymer capacity is another key element of Invista’s integrated nylon 6.6 value chain at SCIP, where we also have a 215,000-tons per year year hexamethylenediamine (HMD) plant and a 400,000-ton per year adiponitrile (ADN) plant currently under construction,” Pete Brown, Invista’s executive vice president, nylon polymer, added.
The ADN project at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park is being constructed by Invista Nylon Chemicals (China) Co. Ltd. The Invista Nylon Chemicals ADN project received its final construction permit this month, allowing construction across the entire facility. Construction has been progressing well for several months in part of the plant and will now commence in the remaining areas.
This plant will deploy the company’s most-advanced, energy-efficient ADN technology in China to satisfy the strong, local demand for ADN, an intermediate ingredient used in the production of nylon and other high-value products. When complete, the new ADN plant will integrate with Invista’s existing HMD and polymer facilities to directly supply domestic customers with the key building blocks to produce nylon and other specialty materials, such as high performance polyamides and polyurethane coatings, in China and throughout the Asia Pacific region.
A subsidiary of Koch Industries since 2004, Invista brings to market the proprietary ingredients for nylon 6.6 and recognized brands, including Stainmaster, Cordura and Antron.