Trinseo to build S-SBR pilot plant

Swiss materials company Trinseo has announced plans for a new Solution-Styrene Butadiene Rubber pilot plant in Schkopau, Germany, for the company’s Synthetic Rubber business. The S-SBR pilot plant will allow for more efficient use of Trinseo’s production facilities and help speed up its innovation in the performance tyre segment. The plant is expected to begin operation in the final quarter of next year.

The aim with the S-SBR pilot plant is to speed up the development process from lab sample to commercialisation. The facility will also deliver sufficient quantities of new S-SBR formulations to meet Trinseo’s real-life tyre testing requirements. The company aims to shorten the time taken to evaluate both process and product parameters, a quickening of tempo it says is being driving by customer demand. A faster testing process is expected to result in an accelerated time to market for new innovations in performance tyre materials.

“The pilot plant demonstrates our long-standing commitment to and collaboration with our customers and is consistent with Trinseo’s strategy to grow our Performance Materials businesses,” comments Hayati Yarkadas, senior-vice president of Trinseo and business president for Performance Materials.

“This strategic investment will allow us to be more agile and flexible than ever before in our ability to turn around S-SBR product testing,” adds Samer Al Jabi, the company’s global business director for Synthetic Rubber. “The pilot plant will be a valuable technology capability, enabling us to bring S-SBR materials to our customers more efficiently and help performance tyre makers meet new market trends.”

Schkopau has a long connection with synthetic rubber; the first industrial plant for the production of artificial rubber started operation in the town in 1937, and the Buna Werke Schkopau was Germany’s largest producer of Buna S synthetic rubber during the Second World War before Allied bombing interrupted supplies of necessary raw materials.