Polyplastics building new COC materials plant in Germany

Photo Credit: Polyplastics Co. Ltd.

Japan-based material supplier Polyplastics Co. Ltd. has announced plans to construct a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) production facility in Leuna, Germany to meet what it calls the growing global demand for its Topas COC polymers.

The new plant, to be operated by local Polyplastics subsidiary Topas Advanced Polymers GmbH, will have a capacity of 20,000 tons per year, more than doubling the company’s current output.

The facility will be operational by mid-2023.

The company’s existing COC production plant is located in Oberhausen, Germany, about 400 kilometers west of Leuna.

“Since the opening of the Oberhausen plant in 2000, a broad range of applications for Topas COC has been developed,” the company said in a Sept. 17 statement. “The material has become a crucial component in many medical devices based on its outstanding purity and glass-like properties.”

In packaging products, Topas COC has raised the performance of commodity polyolefins, the statement said, enabling the development of simpler, better recyclable and sustainable solutions. “Mono-material structures based on PE enhanced with Topas COC are more easily recyclable than multi-material solutions using layers of PET or other PE-incompatible polymers,” Polyplastics said.

Topas COC has been certified as a recyclable polyolefin as part of the EU initiative for a circular economy.