Japan’s Toray Industries has announced plans to build a polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) compound plant at the Hungarian site of its US subsidiary, Zoltek Companies, which makes carbon and oxidized fiber products.

It will be Toray’s first PPS compound plant in Europe, where the Tokyo-headquartered company said demand for the resins has been growing in automotive and industrial applications.

Zoltek said the site in Hungary was chosen because of its central location within Europe. Although the plant will operate alongside Zoltek and use its existing infrastructure, it will remain as a division under Toray. “We are pleased to support the Toray resin business in Europe and we look forward to the positive effect this will have on the automotive industry,” said Zoltek’s president and CEO, Yoshihiro Takeuchi.

The plant at Nyergesújfalu will have a capacity of 3,000 t/y and is expected to start operations in March 2018. Investment costs were not revealed.

Once completed, the plant will take the number of Toray’s PPS manufacturing facilities to eight, which includes sites in Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand and USA.

In July 2016, Toray completed a 11,900 t/y PPS resin and compound plant in Gunsan, South Korea, its fourth in the country. The company said the facility is the world’s first integrated plant producing sulfureted hydrogen sodium, paradichlorobenzene, PPS resin (8,600 t/y) and PPS compounds (3,300 t/y).