Acquisition of Invista’s US plant / Fast-curing epoxy prepregs for serial automotive – Kordsa Invista US plant automotive - Arhive

Fibre and fabric producer Kordsa Teknik Tekstil (Istanbul / Turkey; www.kordsa.com) has acquired Invista‘s (Wichita, Kansas / USA; www.invista.com) plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee / USA through its US subsidiary Kordsa. This production facility, which is also the head office of Kordsa, was evidently not part of the compounding package that Invista sold to Radici (Bergamo / Italy; www.radicigroup.com) last year (see Plasteurope.com of 16.09.2016). The transaction ought to be completed shortly, provided that the anti-trust approval is forthcoming.

The Kordsa group’s composites division – which focuses primarily on the production of polyamide and polyester fibres, including tyre cord – recently announced new, fast-curing, unidirectionally reinforced prepregs for Class A surfaces in the automotive industry. These prepregs are able to cut cycle times from their current nine minutes to less than three minutes. The epoxy resins, with glass or carbon fibre reinforcement, are processed at 150 °C in a compression moulding process. The company, headed by CEO Ali Çaliskan since April 2017, reports that the cycle time for these materials has been around nine minutes. The parts, which can be demoulded while hot, are claimed to be suitable for inline painting and also for hot adhesive joining.