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Article: The New Chemical Valley: ; Belle chemical plant takes shape; Work on $100 million Kureha specialty facility began in January; set to have 50 full-time workers
- Article from:
- Charleston Daily Mail
- Article date:
- July 20, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 Charleston Daily Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Now that the foundation has been poured, Kureha Group's $100
million specialty plastics plant is quickly rising out of the ground
at Belle.
Tokyo-based Kureha's subsidiary, Kureha PGA, is building a
specialty plastics plant that will produce polyglycolic acid, a high-
performance polymer resin also known as PGA.
PGA offers a gas barrier that is 100 times higher than that of
polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET. Kureha has said that
the use of PGA in soft drink and beer containers made of PET can
reduce the amount of PET in those containers by 20 percent while
maintaining the equivalent barrier against carbon dioxide loss.
"This bottle design has the potential of yielding cost ...