Gharda plans to se t up commercial scale production of PEEK, PEK, PBI at Panoli, India

25-Nov-13

Mumbai-based Gharda Chemicals Ltd. plans to open a commercial scale plant in Panoli India for making specialized engineering resins polyetherketone (PEK), polyetheretherketone (PEEK) and polybenzimidazole (PBI), using what it says is a new production method. The company will decide final capacity and investment details later this year, and is aiming for an April 2015 startup for the new facility in Panoli, India, said Prakash Trivedi, head of the polymer strategic business unit for Gharda. Gharda Plastics, the high performance engineering polymers division of Gharda Chemicals Limited, launched its speciality lubricious solution for industrial and business appliances, incorporating various reinforcements in G-PAEK and GAZOLE grades. This collaborative development with other industrial partners is aimed at applications that require very high wear resistance. The G-PAEK product family is based on PEK and GAZOLE - representing freshly commercialized thermoplastic alloys of PEK and PBI. "Gharda is building a major commercial plant." Trivedi said, the company process for making PEK is produced with a single monomer and is based in chlorine rather than fluorine like other PEK manufacturers, adding that PEK capacity could be up to 1,000 metric tons annually. The company has been researching the new grades for the last few years, and has been producing some of them in pilot or semi-commercial volumes at an existing Gharda petrochemical plant in Ankleshwar, in the state of Gujarat, 250 kilometers north of Mumbai Mr. Tushar Parida, of Gharda added. The firm's polyetherketone ketone process is also made with a unique process Gharda developed, using two monomers instead of three as is traditional, while the PBI is made with a single monomer rather than two monomers, Trivedi said. When the new plant in Panoli opens it will also make the monomers the firm uses, and the company believes it can manufacture the three polymers cheaper in India, "Gharda is started marketing and developing it in a major way," Trivedi added.