Ube will expand its silicon nitride production facility at its Ube Chemical Factory to meet a sharp increase in demand, especially for bearings and substrates for electric vehicles (EV). The company’s silicon nitride is a high-grade powder produced using a proprietary imide thermal decomposition method. It is characterized by uniform grain size and low impurity content, and its fine structure...
Asahi Kasei’s synthetic rubber business fell short of its plan in terms of volume for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. Demand for both solution-polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber (SSBR), mainly for tire applications, and butadiene rubber (BR), mainly for non-tire and resin modification applications, declined in the second half. “All regions performed worse than expected. The rise in raw material...
Aron Kasei has launched Grinable, a new brand of environmentally friendly elastomers, and will begin selling the T-Bi series of biomass elastomers as a new product. The company plans to start shipping products around mid-July. The product uses renewable plant-derived materials and is expected to prevent global warming and reduce dependence on fossil resources. In addition, although biomass materials have...
Zeon group company Tokyo Materials reported net sales of 54.09 billion yen ($376 million), up 14.8% year-on-year, ordinary income of 2.57 billion yen, up 4.5%, and net income of 1.89 billion yen, up 11.6% for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023. In the same period, although there were signs of movement toward normalization of economic activities due to progress...
Zeon said that it will raise the selling price of synthetic rubbers starting from deliveries on July 1. The price increase applies to HNBR (hydrogenated nitrile rubber), ZSC (hydrogenated nitrile rubber alloy), and CM (rubber compound). The price increase for HNBR and ZSC is 40 yen ($0.28) per kilogram, while the price for CM will be revised in accordance with...
Kuraray will raise the prices of Kuraray polyols globally, effective July 1 for shipments. The affected products are certain brands of Kuraray polyols (P-series, F-series, and O-series). The price increase will be 12 yen per kilogram for Japanese domestic shipments and $0.10 per kilogram for overseas shipments. The company states that the price increase was decided in order to maintain...
