SDK plans more new grades

07 June 2004 00:01  [Source: ACN]

SHOWA Denko (SDK) expects to achieve annual isocyanate monomer sales of ‘a few hundred million yen’ in 2004-2008 and of Yen2bn (US$17.86m) in 2009, a company source told ACN.

He said the company planned to develop more new grades of isocyanate monomers, such as its world-first Karenz AOI monomer, which contains isocyanates and acrylics: conventional isocyanate monomers, such as its Karenz MOI, contain isocyanates and methacrylics.

The source said isocyanate monomers (used in the electronics and printing industries) and information technology (IT)-related resin products (used by manufacturers of photoresists) came under Showa Denko’s ‘strategic’ businesses. He declined to say how much the company invested in developing the new monomers, but pointed out that the isocyanate monomer and IT-resin businesses would account for half of the company’s R&D budget of Yen17bn for 2004.

He said the company had started producing the new Karenz AOI monomer for test shipment to Japanese electronics manufacturers in May of this year. The monomer was being produced at a multi-purpose plant in Fukushima prefecture, Japan; the plant would be converted gradually into a facility producing new grades of the monomer. The source was unable to give the cost of conversion, saying only that it was ‘small’.

The new monomer, the source explained, allowed higher photosetting speeds by printers than were possible with conventional monomers – more than three times as fast as Karenz MOI and more than twice as fast as commodity acrylates. This, he said, meant greater efficiency and lower production costs for electronic display materials. Usually added to various types of polymers, isocyanate monomers are used widely in the production of liquid photoresists, film photoresists, press plates and for colour calibration.

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