Solutia Inc. announced on 8 April 2010 that it has successfully designed and completed a new, state-of-the-art regional testing facility at the company“s Saflex Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) manufacturing …
Solutia Inc. announced on 8 April 2010 that it has successfully designed and completed a new, state-of-the-art regional testing facility at the company“s Saflex Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) manufacturing centre in Suzhou, China. The new facility, which marks the third testing lab for the company, will support its laminate testing service programme for customers located in the Asia Pacific region serving the Architectural, Automotive and Photovoltaic markets. Solutia already has centres in Indian Orchard, Massachusetts and Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. “While Solutia has always taken part in rigorous internal and external testing of Saflex interlayers to ensure the quality of our products, the opening of a new customer service laboratory located at our plant in Suzhou, China brings this support to the Asia Pacific region,” said Mark Slock, global technical service director for Solutia“s Saflex division. “The new laboratory will allow Saflex applications staff to locally test laminated glass products made with Saflex polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayers in-house to ensure that they meet critical Architectural, Automotive and Photovoltaic industry norms.” The new investment includes essential testing equipment as a bake oven, thermal bath, pummel testing equipment and an impact tower. The customer service lab will also house a sample cnetre, which will provide Saflex sheet samples on request to customers across the region. “The investment in the development of this new facility has demonstrated to our customers an ongoing commitment to serving their needs,” said Rick Calk, vice president of commercial operations for Saflex. “Previously, Saflex had used our lab located in Belgium to conduct laminate testing for Asia Pacific customers, which had become time intensive and resulted in long lead times for the market. By bringing laminate testing capabilities to our Suzhou plant, this allows Saflex to be more proactive and responsive to our regional customers“ needs and requests for additional testing.” Solutia is a market-leading performance materials and speciality chemicals company with a range of products, including: Saflex PVB interlayer for encapsulated solar modules; CPFilms aftermarket window films sold under the LLumar brand and others; as well as technical specialities including the Flexsys family of chemicals for the rubber industry, Skydrol aviation hydraulic fluid and Therminol heat transfer fluid.