The global chemical and specialty materials company, Celanese Corporation, announced on March 6 the expansion of its Pibiflex and Riteflex TPC (thermoplastic co-polyester) production unit at the Donegani facility in Ferrara, Italy to support the continued growth of its global engineered materials business. Celanese recently added one more solid-state polymerization unit at the Donegani facility, which started up successfully in September 2018. Celanese expects to expand the production capacity of the unit further by adding another polymerization line to be completed in the next 15 to 18 months.
Thermoplastic co-polyester (TPCs) are block co-polymers that combine favourable characteristics of vulcanized rubber with the easy processability of thermoplastics for toughness, tear and flex fatigue resistance over a wide temperature range. Besides thermoplastic co-polyesters, Celanese also offers a broad range of other thermoplastic elastomers like thermoplastic vulcanizate (Forprene TPV), thermoplastic olefines (Forflex TPO), thermoplastic elastomers based on SBC (Laprene and Sofprene TPS), and thermoplastic elastomer solutions for special markets like artificial turf infill (Holo, Forgrin, Terra XPS granules) and footwear (Sofprene TPR, Sofpur TPU) for a broad range of customer-oriented solutions, including functionalization and colour.