Singapore-based Teknor Apex Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of US custom compounder Teknor Apex (Pawtucket, Rhode Island; www.teknorapex.com), has restructured its portfolio to offer customers in each end-use market a multiple choice of polymer materials for compound production. The company’s new “polymer neutral” strategy, said to embrace all of the markets it supplies – including automotive, medical, consumer, electrical and electronic, wire and cable, NSF-regulated, packaging, building and industrial applications – was to be introduced at “Chinaplas 2014” (www.chinaplasonline.com), which opened in Shanghai on 23 April – see Plasteurope.com of 23.04.2014.

For any of these sectors, Teknor Apex said end products may include rigid and flexible PVC, a broad range of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs), polyamide and other engineering thermoplastics (ETPs), as well as “uniquely formulated” masterbatch compounds and a range of specialty compounds.

The Singapore company maintains a database of compounds in the various product families, which it claims includes “thousands of specific grades” meeting a wide range of global specification. These can be produced in plants around the world and provide identical performance and code compliance.

“Unlike traditional compounders or forward-integrated resin suppliers that focus on a single chemistry and push a product into the marketplace,” Elliott Pritikin, senior marketing manager for Asia-Pacific, said Teknor Apex as a multiple compound supplier can provide customers “precisely the best one for the target application in the respective global region.” Additionally, buyers benefit from the logistical advantages of single-sourcing, he said.