Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Japan: Almedio recorded sales of US$13.6m in the first quarter of the 2025 financial year, which began on 1 April 2024. This corresponds to year-on-year growth of 56% from first-quarter levels in the 2024 financial year. The period under review brought increased domestic sales volumes of insulation materials. Almedio’s profit before tax more than tripled, to US$4m, Nikkei Asia News has reported. Nonetheless, the producer now expects to record a decline in sales of 38% and in pre-tax profit of 66% year-on-year in the full 2025 financial year.

Japan: Glass fibre products and textiles producer Nitto Boseki raised its sales by 29% year-on-year, to US$184m, in the first quarter of the 2025 financial year. The company’s net profit more than tripled to US$23.2m. Its insulation segment raised its sales by 12% year-on-year to US$26m, recuperating a profit of US$1.4m, compared to a break-even in the first quarter of the 2024 financial year.

Nitto Boseki now anticipates a 17% rise in full-year sales, to US$766m, and a 48% rise in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), to US$162m, in 2024.

Malaysia: Knauf Insulation APAC’s Johor Bahru mineral wool plant has made its first export of unfaced glass wool to Japan. The company said that it has obtained Certification for Japanese Industrial Standards and is now able to begin supplying customers in that market. The 75,000t/yr Johor Bahru plant officially opened in mid-2022. However, the unit reportedly started export glass wool products to Australia in 2021.

China/Japan: Researchers from Kyoto University, the University of Tokyo in Japan and Jiangsu Normal University in China have developed a new material that can selectively capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecules and convert them into ‘useful’ organic materials, including a precursor for polyurethane. The research project has been described in the journal Nature Communications.

The material is a porous coordination polymer (PCP, also known as a metal-organic framework), a framework consisting of zinc metal ions. The researchers tested their material using X-ray structural analysis and found that it can selectively capture only CO₂ molecules with ten times more efficiency than other PCPs. The material has an organic component with a propeller-like molecular structure, and as CO₂ molecules approach the structure, they rotate and rearrange to permit CO₂ trapping, resulting in slight changes to the molecular channels within the PCP. This allows it to act as molecular sieve that can recognise molecules by size and shape. The PCP is also recyclable; the efficiency of the catalyst did not decrease even after 10 reaction cycles.

After capturing the carbon, the converted material can be used to make polyurethane, a material with a wide variety of applications including insulation materials.

Japan: Research by the Japan Sustainable Building Consortium suggests that under floor insulation could reduce negative health effects such as high blood pressure. The study found that when the temperatures near the floor of a person's home were lower, the proportion of people seeing a doctor regularly for conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes increased, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the Mainichi newspaper.

The study looked at 4131 people in 2307 homes identified for insulation retrofitting. The average age of the participants was about 57 years with an even gender split. Comparisons were drawn between residents' health before and after insulation upgrades were completed. The researchers found that in homes where the temperature near the floor was below 15°C, the people were on average 1.51 times more likely to have high blood pressure and 1.64 times more likely to have diabetes. The study also noted adverse health effects when bedrooms and living rooms were unevenly heated.

Japan: Sekisui Chemical's High Performance Plastics Company has acquired the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism approval for a new type of flame retardant for polyurethane. Clearance was granted in September 2013 and now Sekisui Chemical has formally made the announcement as it launches the product.

Under internal testing the new product has passed the 5V-A standard, the most stringent of UL94(3) flame-retardant standards and it meets US flammability standards. When subjected to heat the fire retardant in the new material reacts with oxygen to create layers of charcoal, preventing fires from spreading. Similar to conventional urethane in weight and light stability, it can be shaped into any form.

The new product has a maximum density of 65kh/m³, a minimum compressive strength of 30N/cm², a maximum heat conductivity of 0.031W/m•k and a maximum water absorption of 1.1g/100cm². The company aims for annual domestic sales of US$98m by 2020.

Japan: Achilles Corporation has adopted Honeywell's Solstice(R) Liquid Blowing Agent (LBA) for use in its line of spray polyurethane foam (SPF) building insulation, which is sold under the trade name Achilles Airlon FR-FO.

"Honeywell is committed to developing technologies that help our customers to produce energy-efficient materials that are better for the environment," said Sanjeev Rastogi, business director for Honeywell Fluorine Products. "We are delighted to help Achilles introduce a new class of spray foam insulation in Japan that benefits from our expertise in developing and supplying high-performance, energy-efficient and low-global-warming-potential solutions."

US/Japan: Huntsman Corporation has announced that it has acquired a 20% stake in Nippon Aqua, a spray polyurethane foam (SPF) insulation company based in Yokohama, Japan. The chemical manufacturer has entered into a ten-year supply agreement with the company. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Nippon Aqua is the SPF market leader in Japan, with business operations in over 30 locations across the country, and is a subsidiary of leading residential home builder Hinokiya Holdings. Huntsman supplies various advanced MDI-based polyurethanes systems to Nippon Aqua.

"Following the regrettable accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2011, there's a great focus on how the country will source its energy needs and a growing demand amongst consumers for more effective insulation. Nippon Aqua is well-positioned to satisfy this demand," said Huntsman's president of its polyurethanes division, Anthony P Hankins.

Japan: Panasonic Corp has announced that it will begin to mass-produce heat insulation materials by recycling glass used in cathode-ray tube television sets.

To this end, Panasonic has built within the premises of its 'white goods' plant in Kusatsu, Shiga Prefecture, a facility to melt glass tubes used in the TV sets and turn them into fiberglass insulation. Production is slated to begin in February 2012, the company said.

Panasonic estimates heat insulation for about 300,000 refrigerators can be produced from some 130,000 glass tubes. Besides refrigerators and other home appliances, the insulating material can be used for houses and cold containers, company officials said.

Panasonic has been selling part of glass retrieved from cathode-ray tube television sets at its recycle plant to glass-makers in and outside Japan. But the company decided to recycle the glass on its own because its inventory had piled up.

Japan: To more effectively serve customers in western Japan, Saint-Gobain plans to build a new glass wool production facility near Osaka in the Kansai region through its local subsidiary Mag-Isover, Japan's leading insulation manufacturer. With a planned capacity of 60,000t/yr, the plant is scheduled to be commissioned before the end of 2013.

Representing a total investment of around Euro140 million, the plant will directly employ more than 100 people. Its output will add to the 90,000t/yr of glass wool currently being produced by the Mag-Isover facilities located near Tokyo in the Kanto region. This will bring the company's total production capacity across its four plants to 150,000t/yr.

This investment comes at a time when Japan is aiming to reduce its energy consumption. Buildings account for 30-40% of the energy consumed in the country and therefore offer an enormous combined energy saving potential, particularly in the areas of heating and air conditioning.

Russia: Saint-Gobain is also pursuing its expansion in Russia, where it has acquired Linerock, a company based in Tcheliabinsk, Ural region. Linerock is the Ural region's leading manufacturer of rockwool products, the most widely used insulation materials in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The company employs over 500 people and reported consolidated revenues of around Euro25 million in 2010.