DuPont to Compound Plastics in East China

DuPont’s Transportation & Advanced Polymers, which will be part of the new company called DuPont when DowDuPont splits in spring 2019, is building a new $80 million plant for compounded high-end engineering plastics and adhesives at Zhangjiagang in East China’s Jiangsu Province.

The new facility, which is receiving investment aid from the Zhangjiagang government, is scheduled to go on stream in 2020 in the Yangtze River International Chemical Industrial Park, with plans to expanded it in several stages through 2023. This will be the first multi-business manufacturing facility in China for the newly restructured company.

Products compounded at the East China plant will include DuPont’s Zytel branded nylon engineering plastics, its Delrin acetal resins, Hytrel polyesters and multi-base thermoplastic elastomers as well as lubricants and silicones for applications in the transportation, electronics, industrial and consumer products markets.

DuPont has not revealed capacities for any of the plants.

Randy Stone, president of DuPont Transportation & Advanced Polymers, said the new facilities will support expected growth in the Chinese automotive sector, adding that DuPont’s advanced polymers and solutions are seeing strong demand from electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturers.

In 2017, DowDuPont announced plans to spend $42 million on increasing production capacity for the same products at its Shenzhen, Guangdong site in South China.