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Very lamellar, high-brightness platy talc will soon be available in commercial quantities from a North American source for PP compounds used in automotive, appliance, and packaging markets.  , San Jose, California, is near completion of a development project at its production facilities in Timmins, Ontario, Canada.

 

This investment will complete a multifaceted expansion project which will increase the plant’s production capacity with a proprietary mining beneficiation technology. This enables Imerys to supply these market sectors with a minimum 92 brightness, lamellar, micronized talc from a North American source for the first time in the industry’s history.  There are no active North American sources of bright, platy talc ore, so the industry has been relying heavily on imported ores, historically from China and now dominantly from Pakistan. Imerys’ Penhorwood, Ontario, ore body has sufficient reserves to supply the industry for over 20 years.

 

Says v.p. and general manager Brian Hanrahan, “This will allow us to serve the North American compounding industry with local talc products from a stable, controlled, predictable and sustainable mine. In addition to the high brightness, these talcs also impart improved mechanical properties to plastics versus competitive talc grades.”

The first products of the new range of talcs, called JetWhite, are scheduled for commercialization by the end of July. Samples are available now. The new JetWhite series rounds out Imerys’ line of highly lamellar JetFil products.