Making more Topas
3 Oct 2000
Ticona, the technical polymers business of Celanese AG, Frankfurt, has opened a new production plant for Topas, a cycloolefin copolymer (COC), at its Ruhrchemie site in Oberhausen after a period of construction lasting 18 months.
The capacity of the new plant is 30,000 metric tons/year. Some 73 new jobs are being created in production, plant engineering, dispatch and quality control. The total investment amounts to around Euro 60 million.
Topas is the trade name for a new class of materials, known as cycloolefin copolymers (COC), which are polymerised from norbornene and ethylene using metallocene catalysts.
The former Central Research Department of Hoechst AG developed the polymerisation process with metallocene catalysts that created the basis for economic production of high-quality cycloolefin copolymers for the first time.
Topas offers interesting, new combinations of properties, such as optical clarity, excellent dielectric properties, biocompatibility, high moisture barrier and good heat resistance. By varying the ratio of norbornene to ethylene in polymerisation, the property profile can be tailored to suit specific application requirements.
Topas can be used as an alternative material for many different applications, such as pharmaceutical primary packaging (blister packs and prefillable syringes), diagnostic articles (microtitre plates), optical applications (lenses optical discs), capacitor/packaging films and toner binders for printers and copiers.
In August of this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made effective the Food Contact Substance Notification for the use of Topas in contact with all food types under all conditions of use.
Further information on Ticona and Celanese AG can be found at www.ticona.com and www.celanese.com.
