Borealis and Borouge ‘s new polypropylene (PP) compounding plant in Taylorsville, North Carolina (NC), has started up during Q1 2019, with its inauguration scheduled for May 16. The new plant will significantly strengthen Borealis and Borouge’s global supply capability for thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) and short glass fibre (SGF) compounds.

The plant is an important addition to the global network of Borealis and Borouge’s established compounding plants in Europe, China and Brazil. It is ideally located in the southeast of US to meet the growing needs of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and Tier 1 customers in the region for advanced PP solutions, while adding another 30 kiloton to Borealis and Borouge’s global PP compounding capacity, said Borealis in a media statement. The 50,000 square foot facility, with rail siding in place, offers further expansion possibilities to meet the growing demand of customers.

“With the commercial and product development personnel well out of the starting blocks, our North American automotive team is set to drive the further growth of our automotive business in North America,” said Lucrèce Foufopolous, executive vice president polyolefins and innovation & technology, Borealis. “Following the plant’s mechanical completion in December, first samples were shipped in February, and several projects with leading North American and European OEMs have already been secured.”

Among the first products manufactured at the plant, are automotive interior and exterior materials approved and listed by major automotive customers, including Daimler and Volkswagen Group. In line with the company’s strong commitment to automotive engineering, Borealis has also added an advanced new material to its low-density polypropylene portfolio for interior applications, Daplen EE058AI.

“The 10 percent talcum filled and elastomer-modified high-purity grade is designed to meet the latest OEM requirements for automotive interior applications with low odour, emission and fogging levels, while offering significant weight savings,” said Nicholas Kolesch, head of automotive marketing for Borealis. “It combines an excellent balance of stiffness and impact strength with class A aesthetic surfaces and high scratch resistance.”

The innovative new Daplen EE058AI grade targets global approvals, is available in all Borealis and Borouge sales regions, and was featured at the VDI Plastics in Automotive Engineering (PIAE) congress at the Rosengarten Congress Centre in Mannheim, Germany, recently.

“We have successfully been using existing Daplen products in similar components before, but the new EE058AI grade offers unprecedented weight savings of up to 6.5 per cent without compromising performance, which helps us lower our carbon footprint to meet committed fleet emission levels,” said Ludek Belka, coordinator development dashboard for Škoda. Borealis Daplen and Fibremod long glass fibre thermoplastic materials are also used in further Scala parts, from the interior door panels and dashboard carrier to the front-end module. (PC)