News

Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Tokyo, President: Yasuhiko Saitoh) will carry out ¥20 billion in facility investments in order to further strengthen its cellulose derivatives business.

The new investments will be put into effect at two of Shin-Etsu’s cellulose manufacturing bases – Shin-Etsu Chemical’s Naoetsu Plant in Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture, Japan and SE Tylose GmbH & Co. KG in Wiesbaden, Germany, a 100%-owned subsidiary of Shin-Etsu Chemical. The investment projects are aimed for completion in mid-2019. By expanding its lineup of cellulose products, Shin-Etsu Chemical will capture the broad demand for cellulose products and aim for the further growth of its cellulose business.

The Shin-Etsu Group’s cellulose business

Shin-Etsu Chemical began production of cellulose at its Naoetsu Plant from 1962. Since that time, Shin-Etsu kept on expanding this plant’s production capacity, and at the same time, in 2003, it acquired the cellulose business of Clariant AG (which became SE Tylose), as it continued to expand its cellulose derivatives business. Moreover, in 2016, Shin-Etsu further expanded its cellulose products production capacity when it began production of hydroxyethylcellulose (HEC), a type of cellulose derivative, at a newly constructed manufacturing facility in the State of Louisiana in the United States. At present, Shin-Etsu supplies its various cellulose products to its worldwide customers based on its production system of having tripolar bases in Japan, Europe and the United States.

Cellulose Products

Cellulose derivatives are water-soluble polymers whose principle raw material is cellulose pulp. Their main applications are in the areas of building construction materials and pharmaceuticals, and they are used as well in a wide range of other fields such as in foods, automobiles, personal care products and civil engineering.