Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd. (TYO:4063) is looking to invest a total of 20 billion yen ($181.1 million) into its silicone business to cut down on CO2 emissions. Half of this total will go toward improving manufacturing processes, while the other half will be used as capital investments to bolster production capacity for eco-friendly products. For its efforts on the manufacturing...
Tokyo Zairyo Co. Ltd. has posted its business results for fiscal 2020, showing a hit to its performance across the board. Sales revenue for the raw materials-focused trading firm fell 10.4 percent year-on-year to 77.7 billion yen ($699.65 million), while ordinary profit fell 27.2 percent to 1.9 billion yen and net profit fell 35.5 percent to 1.35 billion yen. In...
Asahi Kasei Corp. (TYO:3407) saw operations slump for its solution-polymerized styrene–butadiene rubber (S-SBR) and butadiene rubber (BR) last fiscal year, with COVID-19 making its impact felt on the sector. Both of these products, however, started to show a significant sales recovery starting last summer. On the back of this recovery, Asahi Kasei’s aim coming into fiscal 2021 has been to...
Kato Sansho Co. Ltd. has worked with Ichinen Chemicals Co. Ltd. to develop One Bio, a series of biomass additives derived from plants. One Bio B-001 is an 80 percent plant-derived additive that can be simply mixed with polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) – materials which make up around half of Japan’s plastics market – to raise the biomass content...
Asahi Kasei Corp. (TYO:3407) has reported its business results for fiscal 2020, showing a year-on-year decline to both sales and income metrics. The company posted sales revenue of 2.11 trillion yen ($19.33 billion), down 2.1 percent year-on-year; operating income of 171.81 billion yen, down 3.1 percent; ordinary income of 178.04 billion yen, down 3.2 percent; and net income of 79.77...
Evonik Industries AG recently announced Ultrasil 4000 GR, a silica with high dispersibility and low specific surface area to allow for an extremely high silica fill ratio in tire treads. Compared to using conventional silica, Ultrasil 4000 GR vastly improves traction for winter tires on snowy and slushy roads. Ultrasil’s grades also have uses beyond tire treads and sidewalls, including...
