Mitsui Chemicals and Ticona reached agreement on distribution of Topas® COC in Asia

29-01-2001: Ticona, the technical polymers business of Celanese AG, today announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Mitsui Chemicals Inc. (MCI) to actively promote and sell its range of Topas® cyclo-olefin copolymer products in Japan.

MCI is the exclusive distributor in Japan and has non-exclusive distribution rights in certain Asian countries outside of Japan. Topas® COC will be marketed and distributed by Ticona in the region with Singapore as the regional headquarters for Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) including the Indian sub-continent.

Topas® is the trade name for a new class of materials, known as cyclo-oelfin copolymers (COC), which are polymerised from norbornene and etylene using metallocene catalysts. 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 innovative, alternative material for many different applications. Typical applications include packaging films (shrink films and easy tear films), pharmaceutical primary packaging (blister packs and prefillable syringes), diagnostic articles (microtitre plates), optical applications (lenses optical discs) and capacitor films.

Topas® is manufactured at its Ruhrchemie site in Oberhausen. The capacity of the new plant is 30,000 metric tons/year. Some 73 new jobs have been created in production, plant engineering, dispatch and quality control. The total investment amounts to around Euro 60 million. The plant at the Oberhausen site today is currently the sole one of its type in the world. Ticona is not only the largest manufacturer of metallocene-catalysed COCs but, with a capacity of 21, 000 metric tons/year, is also the largest supplier of norbornene, the monomer also synthesised in the integrated plant.