SHANGHAI – Solvay, an international chemical group, plans to build a new plant for fluorinated polymers at its industrial site in Changshu, Jiangsu province, this year after it acquired specialty chemicals company Rhodia last September.

The project, which is scheduled to be operational in 2014, is expected to need an investment of 120 million euro, said Maurizio Gastaldi, Head of Asia Growth & Development, Solvay Specialty Polymers.

"It will significantly boost Solvey's global production capacity and meet the growing demand for high value-added specialty polymers in Asia," said Gastaldi, adding that "our focus is to manufacture products for end-use markets such as photovoltaic and lithium batteries, contributing to wider global demand."

Solvay's investment also includes a 21-million-euro project to build a compounding plant in Changshu, which will come on-stream in the summer of 2012.

It will serve the fast growing markets in China for electrical & electronics, wire & cable, automotive, consumer and industrial applications.

"The facility will be fully adaptable for future expansion for both overall capacity and for other high performance engineering and fluorinated polymers," he said.

"The acquisition of Rhodia will strengthen our commitment to expansion in Asia and focus significant investment in China as a platform for growth in the region," said Gastaldi.

He said both will combine their research and development facilities in Shanghai into one world-class R&D center at Rhodia's campus in the city's Xinzhuang Industrial Zone.

A new 4-million-euro building will be added to the existing Rhodia research center with two full floors dedicated to polymer formulation and processing and will include an injection molding facility for customer trials, said Frank Laganier, Director of Asia-Pacific Zone Rhodia Engineering Plastics.

"The facility will boost our capabilities in the injection molding process and thereby improve our products and service offering to customers," said Laganier.

He said the merged R&D campus will also include several state-of-the-art fully equipped laboratories focusing on chemical formulation, mechanical measurements, ageing and flame retardancy and, importantly, a plastic parts simulation and design capability which will radically and cost-effectively help to shorten the time-to-market product development.

"Bringing together and upgrading our research and development facilities will be of great benefit to our China customers," said Laganier.