German chemicals and plastics producer Evonik (Essen; www.evonik.com) has officially started up a new co-extrusion plant for multilayer PMMA flat films at Weiterstadt / Germany. The company said selected customers are now receiving samples of the films with a width of 2,700 mm, which are claimed to be the largest available format worldwide – see Plasteurope.com of 17.02.2017. The new facility that the company said cost a “double-digit million” sum to build has created an unspecified number of new jobs.

Martin Krämer, head of the Acrylic Products business line, said the extended multilayer co-extrusion capability with the new format film width should open up opportunities in applications such as façade materials. To cope with extreme weather conditions, customers in markets with above average growth, for example in Asia, are said to be looking for films with one or more additional functional layers. Other targeted applications are in microfluidic devices, window profile wrapping and in the graphics industry.

In March 2018, Evonik started up what it said is the world’s largest production facility for stretched PMMA sheeting. The large-format sheets with the “lowest thickness tolerances possible” are aimed at applications in the aviation industry – see Plasteurope.com of 29.03.2018.