To reduce its dependency on oil resources, US company DuPont plans to commercialize a polymer derived from renewable resources, mainly corn, starting next year, a company official said yesterday in Taipei.
The company's Sorona polymer uses 1,3-propanediol (PDO) as its key building block, and undergoes a proprietary fermentation and purification process based on corn sugar.
Sorona is stain-resistant, soft and stretches, and can be used in apparel, upholstery, textile fibers and other products, according to DuPont.
"This will be a hit product for DuPont in the coming years," Joseph Carroll, global business manager of DuPont Bio-Based Materials, told a press conference in Taipei yesterday.
Market Timing
With skyrocketing oil prices and the rising awareness about environmental protection, the polymer is expected strike the right note, because its production process uses less energy, reduces emissions and employs renewable resources instead of traditional petrochemical processes, Carroll said.
Sonora was developed in the early 1940s, but was too costly to produce at that time.
Mass production
After decades of improvement, Sonora will be mass produced starting in March through DuPont Tate & Lyle BioProducts LLC, a joint venture DuPont formed with UK-based ingredient maker Tate & Lyle Plc last year.
The company's first plant, in Tennessee, has a capacity of 45,000 tons of Bio-PDO per year, Carroll said.
To shift away from being an oil-dependent company, DuPont plans to derive 25 percent of its revenues from renewable resources by 2010, and the commercialization of Sonora would help to reach this target, Carroll said.
Renewable
DuPont derived 14 percent of its 2002 revenues from renewable resources.
Eying the large market potential in Asia, DuPont is looking for a suitable site to build a second, higher-capacity, plant in the region, Carroll said.
The company will finalize the location for the Asian plant next year, he added.
As Sonora's texture is similar to nylon 6 -- often used in carpeting, clothing and industrial applications -- DuPont is targeting to snatch a slice of that market, Carroll said.
Global demand for nylon 6 is about 2.25 billion kilograms per year, and DuPont will consider it a success if it gains a 1 percent or 2 percent market share with Sonora, he added.
Local partner
DuPont has contracted 10 partners in various countries, including Far Eastern Textile Ltd (
Far Eastern Textile signed a contract with DuPont six years ago to develop various products using Sonora, but the market presence is still limited, said Eagle Chen (陳正一), a deputy manager of Far Eastern Textile's filament division.
With the concept of "green chemistry" rising in recent years, Sonora can be very competitive, Chen said.
But the key to prevailing is cost, as DuPont has set a price level similar to nylon, Chen said.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said
RSS