Nippon Shokubai Co. (Osaka, Japan; www.shokubai.co.jp) has announced plans to construct new facilities for the production of superabsorbent polymers (SAP) and acrylic acid (AA) in Europe, under its Belgium-based subsidiary, Nippon Shokubai Europe N.V. (NSE).
The new SAP and AA plants will each have a production capacity of 100,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr). After the SAP expansion at NSE’s existing plant site, NSE’s total SAP capacity will be 160,000 m.t./yr.
Mechanical completion of the SAP/AA project, which is being built at an existing NSE site, is scheduled for October 2017, with commercial operations commencing in May 2018. The total investment in the projects is approximately €350 million.