Kuraray

What they make

2 inputs Kuraray supplies

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Where they make it

1 facility

Intelligence

What's known

Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.

• Did you know2022

  Kuraray's Vectran fiber (a liquid crystal polymer/LCP fiber) was selected by NASA for the airbags used in the Mars Pathfinder (1997), Spirit, and Opportunity (2004) rover landings because it was the only material that could survive the required combination of properties: extraordinary tensile strength (5x stronger than steel by weight), low creep under sustained load, excellent chemical resistance, and maintained performance at Martian temperatures (-120°C to +25°C). The rovers arrived at Mars cocooned in inflated Vectran airbag clusters that absorbed the impact of landing at 12-15 m/s, bouncing up to 15 meters high before coming to rest. Without Vectran, no alternative fiber could safely deliver a rover to the Martian surface using the airbag approach. Vectran is produced at Kuraray America (Fort Mill, South Carolina) and competes with DSM/Avient's Dyneema (UHMWPE) and Teijin's Twaron/Aramid for cut-resistant and high-performance fiber applications — the same Vectran used in NASA missions also goes into yacht and racing sailboat rigging, deep-sea mooring lines, cut-resistant gloves for food processing workers, and surgical sutures. A specialty fiber from a Japanese chemicals company is simultaneously the material in Mars exploration, offshore oil mooring, and meat-packing gloves.

  Kuraray Co., Ltd. ↗

• Origin2022

  Kuraray Co., Ltd., founded in 1926 in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture (a city known for its historic canal district and textiles), invented EVAL — the world's leading ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) oxygen barrier resin — and remains one of only two companies globally (alongside Nippon Gohsei, which markets SOARNOL) that produce EVOH at industrial scale. EVOH is the thin barrier layer sandwiched inside multilayer food packaging films and rigid containers: every flexible pouch of baby food, vacuum-packed coffee, modified-atmosphere meat package, and squeeze ketchup bottle uses an EVOH barrier layer that is typically 5-15 microns thick to block oxygen permeation and extend shelf life from days to months or years. Without EVOH, the modern flexible food packaging system would require either much thicker packaging (uneconomical) or fundamentally different preservation technologies. Kuraray also produces PVA (polyvinyl alcohol) film for LCD display polarizers — the optical film that makes LCD screens work — and Vectran liquid crystal polymer fiber, which NASA used for the airbags on the Mars Pathfinder (1997), Spirit, and Opportunity (2004) rover landings. A Japanese specialty chemicals company born in the textile industry thus supplies the barrier layer in supermarket food packaging, the optical film inside every LCD screen, and the fiber that bounced NASA rovers onto Mars.

  Kuraray Co., Ltd. ↗

• Concentration2016

  Kuraray (Kurashiki, Japan) is simultaneously the world's largest polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) producer — the primary raw material used by ALL PVB interlayer manufacturers — and a major PVB interlayer competitor (Trosifol® brand, ~22% market share). Kuraray was the first company to commercially produce PVA in Japan in the 1950s and operates 6 PVA plants globally (Japan x2, USA, Germany, Singapore). This means every time Eastman Chemical or Sekisui Chemical makes PVB film, they depend on Kuraray or Chang Chun (2nd-largest PVA maker, Taiwan) for their primary feedstock — while both PVA leaders also compete in the downstream PVB market. A Kuraray PVA supply disruption would simultaneously constrain Eastman and Sekisui's PVB output.

  PCI Magazine (Paintings & Coatings Industry) ↗