Toray Composite Materials America’s facility in Spartanburg, S.C. (Photo courtesy Toray CMA/PRNewswire)
The company said its capital investment is essential to meeting the growing demand for clean energy, particularly pressure vessel applications.
TACOMA, Wash.—Toray Composite Materials America, Inc. (Toray CMA) is increasing the capacity of its carbon fiber facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina, a move that the company called “a major expansion” that is needed to meet growing demand for clean energy products.
Toray Composite Materials America is the manufacturer and supplier of TORAYCA™ carbon fiber materials and high-quality advanced composite prepreg. The company is a subsidiary of Toray Industries (Toray) Inc.
The 30,000-square-foot facility expansion will increase Toray’s carbon fiber capacity by 3,000 metric tons annually, starting in 2025. Toray CMA, reportedly the largest producer of carbon fiber in the United States, is a primary supplier of carbon fiber for alternative energy, the emerging hydrogen economy, and the “ongoing clean energy revolution,” the company said in a release.
Toray CMA’s South Carolina plant expansion will increase the supply of industrial-strength carbon fiber for compressed natural gas, hydrogen tanks, and other pressure vessel applications. The increased supply is necessary as the market experiences rising demand for energy and associated storage, transportation, and handling infrastructure, according to the release.
“The market for clean energy solutions is continuing to rapidly develop,” said Tim Kirk, Toray CMA’s vice president of marketing, in the release. “As released earlier this year under Toray’s Medium-Term Management Program, Project AP-G 2025, we are committed to accelerating technologies that will greatly reduce our environmental burden. This next expansion enables us to keep pace with the needs of our customers and maintain our leadership position.”
The expansion is expected to add flexibility and capability, enabling Toray to better serve customers in aerospace and defense, industrial, sports and recreation, and automotive markets.
Toray’s production system is a fully integrated supply chain, as the Spartanburg plant operates with production lines from precursor to carbon fiber and prepreg. Other Toray CMA manufacturing facilities are located in Decatur, Alabama, and Tacoma, Washington.