JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #102 - January/February 2016 - 17

The polymer is valued for its use
in high-performance thermoplastic composites. In March
2015, Solvay and 3A Composites
formed a partnership for specialty foams for the automotive
and transportation markets, and
3A Composites' U.S. foam extrusion site is scheduled to start
operations in 2016. In October,
Solvay acquired activities in
long-glass-fibre thermoplastics
from the German company
EPIC Polymers; this long fibre
thermoplastic (LFT) technology
can be applied to Solvay's PEEK,
PAEK, PPA, PPS and PA 6,6
resins. The goal here is clearly to
replace metal in the automotive
and transportation sectors. With
the December confirmation of
the Cytec acquisition, Solvay
completes a year of composite
investment in what appears to be
a long-term strategy.
In future, Cytec might benefit
from Solvay's financial strength
and the long-term vision of
the family holding company
Solvac S.A. to further develop its
carbon-fibre production.

Carbon gearing up
for automotive
In late January, Ford and
DowAksa announced their
participation in the Institute for
Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI)
to further their joint development work in new carbon-fibre
composite technology.
In March, hoping to facilitate the
integration of composites into its
vehicles, Porsche (a division of
the Volkswagen group) acquired
a 25.1% interest in Carbone
Capricorn, a German auto parts
manufacturer that already makes
parts for Porsche, including its

LMP1 and 918 Spyder models.
Volkwagen already held a slightly
under 10% interest in Capricorn.
In April, Teijin launched the
Automotive Business Development Group, directly under its
Carbon Fibers & Composites
business unit. This new entity
is in charge of marketing the
CFRP thermoplastics previously
managed by the Teijin Composites Innovation Center and the
CFRP thermosets previously
managed by Toho Tenax. The
Teijin Composites Innovation
Center will focus on technology
development.

in automotive series production.
Penso specializes in automotive engineering, converting
vehicles and series production
of composite parts, in particular
for the automotive and railway
industries.

In November, Mitsubishi
Rayon (MRC) announced the
construction of a new plant in
Vilshofen (Bavaria, Germany) to
produce carbon sheet moulding compound (SMC) for
European markets, in particular
automotive. The plant should
start operating in September
2016 with an annual capacity of
In late April, BMW introduced
1,000 metric tons (MT) and the
its new 7 Series with its passenger potential to increase production
cell made using SGL's carbon
to 6,000 MT in the case of rising
fibre: a concrete demonstration
demand. Over time, MRC's
of how its carbon strategy is deSMC production capacity could
veloping on its "classic" vehicles
triple the installed capacity of the
(excluding the BMWi).
Toyohashi plant in Japan.
In May, Mitsui began to work
That same month, the Italian
with Kanazawa Institute of Tech- group Polynt announced that it
nology's Innovative Composite
also would invest at its site near
Materials Research and Develop- Frankfurt, Germany to produce
ment Center (ICC) to conduct
carbon SMC for series applicaresearch on production methods tions, including automotive.
for carbon parts dedicated to the The new production line should
automotive and other industrial have a production capacity of
sectors.
2,000 MT/year as early as spring
2016. Polynt also indicated that
In early June, the German
it was considering the start-up
company Voith received an order of a similar production facility in
from Audi for large-volume pro- South Korea for 2016.
duction of carbon components
for a new Audi model.
And during the same period,
In July, Quickstep announced
the Lightweight Excellence
that it was on the point of signing Programme (LX) consortium
a contract with a global automo- announced that Bentley, Emertive OEM for the production
ald Automotive and Nissan were
of engine compartment parts.
working with the consortium to
Series production could start
reduce vehicle weight. The LX
in early 2016 and rise to 1,000
consortium's goal is to accelerate
parts.
the penetration of composites
all along the automotive supply
At the end of October, Cytec ac- chain in the United Kingdom.
quired a stake in Penso, a British
company, to reinforce its position In early December, Cytec inau-

No102 January - February 2016 /

gurated its Application Centre
in Heanor (UK), dedicated
to materials and processes for
large-volume applications (e.g.
automotive), next to the existing production and R&D sites.
Cytec invested US$13 million in
this new tool, which is an integral
part of the company's long-term
"automotive series" strategy.

And then?
The automotive carbon market
promises to be huge - and it
is whetting appetites, even if
the ticket into this market is
extremely expensive in terms of
skills and financial strength. Over
the next few years, we should be
seeing some consolidations and
major surprises. A number of big
polymer companies could be in
the running, such as (with 2014
sales in parentheses) Arkema
(€7.5 billion including Bostik),
BASF (€74 billion), Covestro
(formerly Bayer Material Science, US$11.65 billion), Dow
(US$58.17 billion), DuPont
(US$28 billion), Evonik (€12.92
billion), LyondellBasell (even if
it is a polyolefin specialist, $45.6
billion), and Sabic (US$52
billion). Other players, including metal producers, could be
interested in investing here.
Dupont and Dow Chemical
announced on December 11th
that they were merging to form
a new, temporary group called
DowDupont, with a capitalization of US$130 billion. Once
the transaction is completed,
the plan is to create three new
entities dedicated respectively
to agriculture, materials science
and speciality products within
a period of 18 months to two
years. n
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