“This new plant will meet the fast-growing demand for Expancel. We are excited to better serve our customers throughout the Americas as well as other parts of the world,” said Sylvia Winkel Pettersson, vice president for Expancel. “The first step will be the start of initial production in Green Bay in October 2020; this will be followed by further increases over the next several years.”

Expandable microspheres are used as a lightweight filler and blowing agent to make products lighter and obtain different surface effects. Key end-use markets include the automotive, construction, packaging and mining industries.

Johan Landfors, president of technology solutions, added that the ability to create lightweight products with Expancel “presents tremendous growth opportunities as customers drive to implement improved sustainable solutions.” He added that the Green Bay investment complements the company’s other Expancel production sites in Sweden, Brazil and China.

Nouryon has announced two other projects in the past couple of months - one in the Netherlands and one in China. The company is increasing capacity for monochloroacetic acid in Delfzijl by the end of 2020 and plans to build a new plant for two organic peroxide intermediates in Ningbo for start up in the second half of 2021.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist