Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Luxembourg: Armacell recorded consolidated net sales of Euro591m in 2020, down by 8% year-on-year from Euro644m in 2019. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 10% to Euro120m from Euro134m. During the year, the company completed a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foaming line expansion in Suzhou, China, built an elastometric foams plant in Cheonan, South Korea and consolidated its Italian insulation activities at a new facility in Turin. It also made strategic investments in diversified areas.

President and chief executive officer Patrick Mathieu said, “In a complex and challenging environment our business model again proved resilient. With our global reach and multi-segment activity, we ended the year in relatively good shape. We took the appropriate measures to navigate changing circumstances and ensure we come out of the pandemic stronger than before. Our utmost priority was always to safeguard the health of our employees, maintain operations and continuously support our customers.” He added, “After the successful closure of our capital market refinancing in February 2020, our shareholders PAI Partners and KIRKBI expressed their commitment to our on-going growth strategy. In 2021, we look forward to partnering with our customers in adding value to their businesses.”

Denmark: Rockwool recorded net sales of Euro2.60bn, down by 4% year-on-year in local currency terms. Profit for the year fell by 12% to Euro251m. Sales were supported in regions where construction was able to remain active throughout the coronavirus lockdowns. The company noted a strong recovery in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Chief executive officer Jens Birgersson said, “Looking back on a turbulent year, we are proud of how well our colleagues handled the many challenges. Our teams ensured employees were safe while quickly adjusting operations, sales and service to match the changing needs of our customers.”

The company plans to make Euro370m of investments, excluding acquisitions in 2021. Planned investments include a new plant in the US and a plant relocation in China, in addition to capacity expansions for its Rockfon and Grodan stone wool businesses.

The group said, “The underlying medium to long-term structural growth drivers for stone wool products are even stronger today than at the start of 2020. On top of fundamental trends like urbanisation and increasingly tighter building regulations, we expect that several other trends will continue driving growth in our business. For example, the growing focus on energy efficiency, fire safety and circularity continues to influence the decisions of consumers, the building industry and policymakers, with the pandemic accelerating these trends in multiple ways.”

US: Stepan has recorded a first-half income before tax of US$63.4m, up by 15% year-on-year from US$55.2m in the first half of 2020. Net sales were US$910m, down by 5.4% year-on-year from US$962m. Polymer sales, which includes sales of Stepan’s rigid foam insulation polyols, fell by 20% to US$112m from US$141m due to lower North American and European demand, “reflecting Covid-19 construction project delays,” according to the company. This was partly offset by increased sales volumes of 41% from its China division.

China/Japan: Researchers from Kyoto University, the University of Tokyo in Japan and Jiangsu Normal University in China have developed a new material that can selectively capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecules and convert them into ‘useful’ organic materials, including a precursor for polyurethane. The research project has been described in the journal Nature Communications.

The material is a porous coordination polymer (PCP, also known as a metal-organic framework), a framework consisting of zinc metal ions. The researchers tested their material using X-ray structural analysis and found that it can selectively capture only CO₂ molecules with ten times more efficiency than other PCPs. The material has an organic component with a propeller-like molecular structure, and as CO₂ molecules approach the structure, they rotate and rearrange to permit CO₂ trapping, resulting in slight changes to the molecular channels within the PCP. This allows it to act as molecular sieve that can recognise molecules by size and shape. The PCP is also recyclable; the efficiency of the catalyst did not decrease even after 10 reaction cycles.

After capturing the carbon, the converted material can be used to make polyurethane, a material with a wide variety of applications including insulation materials.

Germany: Armacell has recorded earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the first half of 2019 of Euro63.4m, up by 29.2% year-on-year from Euro50.6m in the six months to 30 June 2018.

Armacell recorded half-year sales of Euro322m, up by 6.3% from Euro303m. CEO Patrick Mathieu notied the strong performance of both advanced insulation and engineered foams. The first half of 2019 was notable for an increase in Armacell’s Chinese polyethylene terephthalate (PET) production capacity and a commercial cooperation agreement in April with Thermaflex in Russia.

China/Germany: German companies Evonik and ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions have granted a licence to Zibo Qixiang Tengda Chemical for the use of its hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) technology in China. Qixiang Tengda Chemical will build a propylene oxide plant in Shandong province and Evonik has licensed the production of hydrogen peroxide for the exclusive supply of the plant. Evonik and ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions have also entered into a long-term agreement for the supply of the respective HPPO catalyst. Propylene oxide is used mainly for the production of polyurethane foams, including those used in insulation for buildings.

“We’re proud of having gained Qixiang as a new strategic partner. With environmental awareness on the rise in China, HPPO is the technology of choice for sustainable production of propylene oxide because it produces no major by-products apart from water,” said Claus Rettig, the chairman of the board of Evonik’s Resource Efficiency division.

Planning work for the new Qixiang Tengda plant is scheduled to start in mid-August 2019 with commissioning expected for the first half of 2022. Qixiang Tengda, a chemical manufacturer, is part of Cedar Holdings Group.

China: A study by researchers from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Britain's University of Bristol says that the provinces of Shandong and Hebei are the source of a rise in trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) emissions. It attributed about 40% to 60%of in the rise in CFC-11 since 2013 to this region, according to Reuters. After studying atmospheric data from South Korea and Japan they estimated that CFC-11 emissions from eastern China during the 2014 - 2017 period were around 7000t/hr higher than 2008 - 2012.

Previously in mid-2018 an investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) speculated that the widespread use of CFC-11 by Chinese rigid polyurethane (PU) foam producers might be the source of the reported rise of emissions.

China launched an inspection campaign into 3000 foam manufacturers in 2018 and promised to punish any violations of the Montreal Protocol treaty. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in March 2019 that it had shut down two manufacturing areas that produced CFC-11. It added that its investigation into PU foam makers had not found any large-scale usage so far but that producers may be getting better at hiding their operations. It also noted that there was ‘uncertainty’ in published research and called for better detection mechanisms.

China/Germany/US: The Mannheim Court in Germany has found that Chinese companies Guangdong Alison Hi-Tech and Nano Tech infringed one of Aspen Aerogels’ European patents by selling infringing aerogel insulation products. As part of the judgments, the Mannheim Court issued injunctions prohibiting the offer, distribution, use or import of infringing products in Germany and held Nano and Alison liable to Aspen Aerogels for damages, court costs and some of Aspen's legal fees and expenses. The Mannheim Court's decision is subject to an appeal to the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe. In a related lawsuit, the Mannheim Court had previously issued a series of judgments against Hiltex Techniche Weefsels, a Dutch reseller of the infringing Chinese aerogels.

In addition, the German Federal Patent Court in Munich found the Aspen patent to be valid as granted in a patent nullity action initiated by Nano. The Munich Court's decision follows other unsuccessful challenges to the validity of Aspen's patents by Nano and Alison in the US and China.

"Our core strategy is to invest in the research, development, commercialisation and protection of our aerogel technology platform worldwide. These European patent wins, along with our 2018 victory at the US International Trade Commission, reinforce the scope and strength of Aspen's patent portfolio," said Don Young, President and chief executive officer (CEO) of Aspen Aerogels.

China: An explosion at the Xinhong Thermal Insulation Materials Company plant in Lankao county in Henan province has killed eight people and injured another. An initial investigation has found that it was caused by a propane leak, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

US/China: The Office of the US Trade Representative has started implementing a 10% tariff on mineral and other products from China, including mineral wool products, following a consultation period. Mineral products affected by the proposed tariffs of interest to the insulation industry include: slag wool, rock wool and similar mineral wools, in bulk, sheets or rolls; and nonwoven glass wool insulation products. The latest tariff list follows an earlier decision by the US government to tax imports from China worth US$34bn that came into force in early July 2018.