The opening ceremony of Sekisui’s new PP foams facility
Sekisui Chemical Co. (Osaka, Japan; www.sekisuichemical.com) announced that SEKISUI YOUNGBO HPP (WUXI) CO., a consolidated subsidiary of Sekisui located in Jiangsu Provine, China, commenced mass production and sales in May 2019. Sekisui Youngbo is a company that primarily manufactures polypropylene foams (PP foams) for automotive interiors; its establishment was approved by the Chinese government in April 2017. Used as an underlayment material for automotive interiors, PP foams are high-performance foams that possess outstanding impact resistance and that are easily processed. As customers demand increasingly high-quality automobiles in China, so demand for high-performance foams has risen rapidly. For this reason, the SEKISUI YOUNGBO commenced mass production and sales two months earlier than originally planned.
China’s environmental regulations are extremely strict, and the plant housing the production line is being operated as a “zero industrial wastewater” plant. The layout of the plant has been designed to enable multiple production lines to be added in the future, with a view to increased production. Currently, the plant area is approximately 7,500 m2, representing an investment amount of around 2.5 billion yen.