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Greenville Business Magazine

Milliken Breaks Ground On New Blacksburg Plant

Milliken & Company has begun building the largest specialty chemical plant in the company’s history. Located in Blacksburg, S.C., the world-class facility is due to begin operations in 2020 and will bring a number of competitive jobs to the Upstate, from skilled manufacturing positions to leading research chemists, chemical engineers, and business roles. 

The largest capital expenditure in the history of Milliken Chemical, the new plant will increase capacity for its Millad®NX™ 8000 clarifier by 50 percent to help meet fast-growing global demand. This ground-breaking polypropylene additive provides plastic converters with significant sustainability and performance advantages, which are verified by Underwriters Laboratories®. The emission reductions paired with the functional and aesthetic benefits provided by Millad NX 8000 make this clarifying agent one of the most important products in the history of plastic additives.

“The new Milliken facility will expand the Upstate’s ability to bring tangible sustainability benefits to the global plastics industry,” shared Allen Jacoby, senior vice president of Milliken’s plastics additives business. “We’re committed to attracting industry-leading talent, investing in our footprint, and expanding our team, based here in in the Upstate, to support our company’s global growth.” 

Millad NX 8000 creates opportunities to replace less sustainable plastics such as polystyrene and PVC with NX UltraClear™ PP, a type of polypropylene that can only be produced using the Millad NX 8000 clarifier. Polypropylene is known for its lightweight characteristics and its low carbon footprint, and Millad NX 8000 helps to build on these performance benefits. Compared to previous polypropylene clarifiers, which are used to create transparent, more attractive products like food storage containers, Millad NX 8000 improves both the aesthetics and processability of polypropylene. 

The environmental benefits of Millad NX 8000 have been third-party verified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), providing an energy savings of 8 to 15 percent in injection molded, transparent polypropylene products. As such, items manufactured with Millad NX 8000 may add a UL eco-label to demonstrate brand value.  

The Greenville office of Fluor has been selected to manage the engineering, procurement and construction of the plant. The new Milliken Blacksburg facility will follow the same rigorous, award-winning operating, environmental, and safety standards for which Milliken manufacturing is known.

For more information, please visit chemical.milliken.com