Honeywell Resins and Chemicals has broken ground on its new nylon resins production line at its Chesterfield, Virginia manufacturing facility.
The new production line can produce multiple grades of Honeywell Aegis nylon 6 resins, as well as copolymer nylon 6/6.6 resins, both of which are used in food packaging films and other applications. When the line starts up in the fourth quarter of 2015, Honeywell's Chesterfield facility will become the first and only North American supplier of both resins.
Honeywell announced in April 2014 its plans to build the new line, which will expand the manufacturing capacity of the Chesterfield facility by 40,000 metric tonnes to 200,000 metric tonnes per year.
The expansion will also include technologies developed by other Honeywell businesses, including Experion PKS distributed process control systems from Honeywell Process Solutions.
Honeywell also manufactures nylon films under the Aegis and Capran brands for use in food packaging, as well as industrial applications ranging from wind turbine blades to aerospace components. As well, the company produces many chemical intermediates, including phenol, Nadone cyclohexanone, Naxol cyclohexanol, acetone and caprolactam; and manufactures Sulf-N ammonium sulfate fertiliser, a co-product of caprolactam production. Honeywell's plant in Hopewel (Virginia), with a capacity of 350,000 metric tonnes of caprolactam per year, is one of the world's largest caprolactam and ammonium sulfate plants.
In addition to manufacturing, the business also conducts nylon-related research and development at technology centres in New Jersey and Virginia, where it operates laboratory-scale polymer reactors and blown film equipment, as well as in Shanghai, China, where the business has extensive analytical capabilities for resin development.
(PRA)
