Invista completes nylon 6,6 capacity expansion in Shanghai

INVISTA (Wichita, Kan.) has completed a 40,000-ton/year nylon 6,6 polymer capacity expansion at its polymer plant at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP). This addition brings the plant’s capacity to 190,000-ton/year.
 
“This new polymer capacity is part of INVISTA’s strategic investments to supply the strong local and regional demand for high-quality nylon products,” said Angela Dou, INVISTA’s Asia Pacific regional business director, nylon polymer. “We estimate China could become the world’s largest consumer of nylon 6,6 in the next few years—with many growth sectors, including an increased demand for engineering polymers used in automotive, electrical & engineering markets, such as light weighting, powertrain parts optimization, electrification, and automation.”
 
This expansion is INVISTA’s fourth continuous polymerization line at SCIP where the company now has 30,000-ton/year autoclaves and 160,000-ton/year continuous process nylon 6,6 polymer capacity.
 
Pete Brown, INVISTA’s executive vice president, nylon polymer, added, “The additional polymer capacity is another key element of INVISTA’s integrated nylon 6,6 value chain at SCIP where we also have a 215,000-ton/year hexamethylenediamine (HMD) plant and a 400,000-ton/year adiponitrile (ADN) plant currently under construction.”