Chemical Recycling Japan, a subsidiary of oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan, has completed construction of a chemical recycling plant for converting post-consumer and post-industrial recovered plastics into oil; at a site in Ichihara City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The plant has aplastic processing capacity of 20,000 tonnes annual and is scheduled to commence commercial operations in April 2026. The company’s proprietary chemical recycling technology is centered on a catalyst-based c

Usage in solar module encapsulation continues on growth trend Automotive PP compounds remain a mainstay growth application POPs face competition from traditional mLLDPEs in sealant film applications New Chinese entrants face operational teething issues Singapore, January 20, 2026 – The global market for polyolefin elastomers and plastomers (POEs/POPs * ) is forecast to grow at 5.6% per annum (CAGR) through to 2036 to a volume of 4.4 million tonnes-plus according to the latest

Every year, the Valencian agricultural sector generates around 800,000 tonnes of plant waste, such as rice straw and citrus pruning waste. Currently, the methods for recovering this biomass are costly, as they require commercial enzymes that can represent up to 40% of the cost of the process, which limits its industrial viability. To solve this problem, AIMPLAS, the Plastics Technology Centre, is leading the BIOVALSA project, an initiative that seeks to develop innovative pro

SABIC has the signed two strategic transactions to divest its European Petrochemicals (EP) business to AEQUITA and its Engineering Thermoplastics (ETP) business in the Americas and Europe to MUTARES, for a total combined enterprise value of $950 million. SABIC’s EP business produces and markets various petrochemical and plastic products: ethylene, propylene, low- and high-density polyethylene (LDPE, LLDPE, and HDPE), polypropylene (PP), and value-added polymer compounds, and

Toray Industries, Inc., has developed a highly antistatic version of Toyolacparel acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resin. The surface resistivity is 10 9 Ω/sq (one billion ohms per square), one-fifth that of the company’s conventional counterpart. Toyolacparel provides durable antistatic performance by forming a continuous-layer 3D network of antistatic polymer throughout the ABS resin. The high surface resistivity of the new compound reflects an improved molecular desig