Japan’s Nippon Shokubai has officially opened a 100,000 tonnes/year acrylic acid (AA) plant that was built at a cost of about $200 million at Cilegon, Banten, Indonesia. This takes its global capacity to 980,000 tonnes, of which 540,000 are in Japan itself.

AA is a key raw material in superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) for disposable diapers, the application that is mainly driving continuing demand growth. SAPs are also used in paints and adhesives. Nippon Shokubai claims to be the world’s largest SAP producer and has integrated AA and SAP facilities across the globe.

Nippon Shokubai has established a new Green Innovation department within the Innovation & Business Development division. This, the company said, will integrate sustainable projects with research planning and development organisations related to energy and resource use. Its key responsibilities are to develop:

* Manufacturing methods from bio-based raw materials of the firm’s core products of acrylic acid and ethylene oxide

* CO₂ capture and conversion technology

* New technologies for ammonia manufacturing and utilisation

Nippon Shokubai and its Japanese compatriot Summit Cosmetics, a subsidiary of Sumitomo, have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding for the joint development and sales of next-generation personal care ingredient fields. Both are initially investigating new film forming agents and thickeners, including biopolymers.