25 March 2014
Details
HONG KONG
the largest distributor of specialty chemicals and
ingredients in Asia-Pacific,
announced today that it has partnered with
a leading specialty materials company,
to market Lehigh’s PolyDyne™
to the tire and rubber industries
in Japan and Korea.
After initial success in Japan,
the two companies will focus on
* broadening industry outreach,
* supply chain efficiency and
* technical support in Japan,
as well as introducing MRP to
Korea and Southeast Asia.
said Azita Owlia,
vice president for north Asia at CBC.
Following two years of market development,
MRP—produced from
end-of-life tires and post-industrial rubber—
has helped meet growing demand for
affordable, high performance and
sustainable raw materials in Japan,
one of the world’s leading automotive markets.
“The Japanese tire and rubber industries
have always shown clear demand for
specialty materials that offer
cost and environmental benefits,”
“These materials also need to
meet stringent performance criteria,
given Japan’s best-in-class quality and
safety standards for tire manufacturing.
Lehigh’s PolyDyne MRP
delivers all of these benefits,
and we expect that the partnership
will expand the MRP customer base in Japan.
Encouraged by our success in Japan,
we also expect to develop a market for
PolyDyne™ in Korea,
another leading automotive manufacturing hub in Asia.”
In recent years,
many tire and rubber companies
have implemented robust sustainability and
waste reduction programs
to address the end-of-life tires produced by
the automotive industry each year.
By transforming these end-of-life tires
into new materials,
MRP can help the automotive sector
meet environmental goals
without paying a premium for sustainability.
Additionally, incorporating MRP into new tires
provides crucial environmental benefits via
energy savings and
reducing virgin rubber consumption.
Connell Brothers currently provides
marketing, sales, supply chain and
technical support for
Lehigh’s PolyDyne™ product in Japan.
The company is deploying its technical knowledge
and understanding of the products, applications,
local regulations and culture of Japan
to bridge the requirements of
local downstream tire manufacturers and
the products available from leading global suppliers.
said Alan Barton,
CEO of Lehigh Technologies.
“With one of the largest automotive sectors in the world,
Asia is an important market for MRP,”
“Our MRP has already been used
to make more than 250 million tires globally,
and our customer base includes
six of the top 10 tire companies in the world.
Thanks to Connell Brothers’ commercial strengths
and excellent technical sales team,
we have successfully introduced MRP
to the Japanese market.
We are now working to boost our capabilities
in the region in order to leverage
this traction and accelerate MRP adoption,
as well as to introduce MRP to other markets
in the Asia-Pacific region.”
What is Micronized Rubber Powder
Lehigh Technologies’ micronized rubber powder (MRP)
–transformed from end-of-life tires and
other post-industrial rubber–
is a lower cost, high-performance,
sustainable specialty material that
replaces oil- and rubber-based materials
to reduce costs and cut waste.
These micron-scale powders
are sold to manufacturers of advanced products,
including
* high-performance tires,
* industrial rubber,
* consumer and industrial plastics goods,
* asphalt and
* coatings and
* construction materials.
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