Topas Advanced Polymers (>>)
TOPAS Advanced Polymers manufactures and markets TOPAS® COC (cyclic olefin copolymer) for advanced packaging, medical, optical and other applications worldwide. It also supplies Crystal Dew® COC, wich adds decorative highlights to many settings, and the chemical raw material norbornene.
The company is a joint venture of Daicel Chemical Industries Ltd., and Polyplastics Co., Ltd. It is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and has a U.S. subsidiary in Florence, Ky. It operates a 30.000-metric tonnes/year COC plant, the world's largest, in Oberhausen, Germany. It employs about 100 people working in research and development, marketing and sales production and administration. It was launched January 1, 2006 following the purchase of the TOPAS business from Ticona, a subsidiary of Celanese Corporation.
TOPAS COC was developed in the early 1990s by Hoechst AG. Hoechst created a new COC proves in which norbornene is synthesized from dicyclopentadiene and ethylene. A second step copolymerises norbornene with ethylene over metallocene catalysts to generate cyclic olefin copolymer generated.