Chinese industrial yarn producer China ShenMa Group Co. has developed its own polyamide chip for airbag yarn production.

 

Until now the crucial raw material has been imported into China. Invista of Wichita, Kansas, and Polyamide High Performance GmbH of Wuppertal, Germany, both supplied the chip for conversion into yarn inside China.

 

Currently, ShenMa-PHP Pingdingshan Airbag Yarn Manufacturing Co., a joint venture between PHP and ShenMa Group is testing the new resin.

 

"ShenMa has started making the polymer already, and we are now testing it," says Song Guangze, general manager of PHP-ShenMa Airbag Yarn Marketing (Shanghai) Co.

 

ShenMa is making the polyamide chip at a plant a few kilometers away from the ShenMa-PHP Pingdanshan plant in north China's Henan province, according to Song.

 

Projects currently in production cannot switch to using the locally made polymer chip yet, says Song. "In this business you can't just change the raw material in a short time—we are currently testing for the future," he says.

 

"For new business we could use the local polymer," he says.

 

ShenMa-PHP Pingdingshan opened in October 2007, a year before its  competitor Invista Speciality Fibers (Shanghai) Co. opened.

 

Invista also has plans to make the resin locally. At the Invista plant opening, Dan Stone, president of Invista's performance materials said: "We have a vision for producing polymer resins in China, probably in the next couple of years."