Invista has completed its nylon 6,6 polymer capacity expansion at its polymer plant at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP).
The company added a 40,000 ton per year capacity bringing the plant’s total capacity to 190,000-ton per year.
“This new polymer capacity is part of Invista strategic investments to supply the strong local and regional demand for high-quality nylon products,” said Angela Dou, Invista’s Asia Pacific regional business director, nylon polymer.
“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 & engineering markets, such as light weighting, powertrain parts optimization, electrification, and automation.”
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-ton per year continuous process nylon 6,6 polymer capacity.
Pete Brown, Invista’s executive vice president, nylon polymer, added, “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-ton per year hexamethylenediamine (HMD) plant and a 400,000-ton per year adiponitrile (ADN) plant currently under construction.”
The completion comes nearly two weeks after the company’s ADN project at the SCIP secured a final construction permit.
Construction commenced this June. The new approval will enable the company to start construction work in the remaining areas. ADN is an intermediate ingredient used in the production of nylon 6,6.