is a
multinational corporation headquartered in Japan that specializes in industrial products centered on technologies in
organic synthetic chemistry,
polymer chemistry, and biochemistry.
Its founding business areas were
fibers and
textiles
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
, as well as
plastics and chemicals. The company has also diversified into areas such as
pharmaceuticals
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and rel ...
,
biotechnology and
R&D, medical products,
reverse osmosis
Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process that uses a partially permeable membrane to separate ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. In reverse osmosis, an applied pressure is used to overcome osmotic pre ...
big membranes,
electronics,
IT-products, housing and engineering, as well as advanced
composite materials.
The company is listed on the first section of
Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the
TOPIX 100 and
Nikkei 225 stock market indices
In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance.
Two of the ...
.
History
Toray Industries had been originally established as Toyo Rayon in 1926 by
Mitsui Bussan, one of the two largest Japanese trading companies (''sogo shosha'') of the time (the other being
Mitsubishi
The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries.
Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...
Shoji). The fact that Mitsui did not allow the company to be named as a Mitsui company indicates their skepticism of the risk on the business. Risk arose from the fact that, when it was established, the company did not have the right technology to produce
Rayon
Rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber, made from natural sources of regenerated cellulose, such as wood and related agricultural products. It has the same molecular structure as cellulose. It is also called viscose. Many types and grades of viscose f ...
. It had approached
Courtaulds and then
Du Pont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
to buy the technology but, because the price was too high, it decided to buy equipment from a German engineering company and hire about twenty foreign engineers to start the operation.
When
Nylon was invented in 1935 by
Wallace Carothers of
DuPont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
, Toray immediately got hold of a sample product through the
New York City branch of Mitsui Bussan, and started research by dissolving this sample in
sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...
. Because of the patent protection, the company had to make its own effort to synthesize polyamide and make fibre out of it. In 1941, just three years after Du Pont's announcement of nylon, Toray completed the basic research on nylon and started building a small plant to produce Nylon 6. The operation started in 1943 and the product was sold, mainly to make fishing nets.
In 1946, following the end of
World War II, Du Pont requested an investigation by
GHQ (the General Headquarters of Allied Powers) of Toray's infringement of Du Pont's nylon patents but GHQ found no evidence of infringement, certifying that Toray's nylon technology was its own.
Toray is currently the world's largest producer of
carbon fiber, and Japan's largest producer of synthetic fiber. Its carbon fiber is extensively used in exterior components of the
Boeing 787 airliner.
In 2014, as a major aerospace composites supplier, Toray opened a
polyacrylonitrile (PAN), the carbon fiber precursor, production line in
Lacq, south-western France.
Operations
* The world headquarters is in the
Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower, 1-1, Nihonbashi-Muromachi 2-chome, Chūō,
Tokyo, Japan
* Toray sponsors the ''
Pan Pacific Open''
Tennis Tournament
* Toray sponsors the ''Digital Creation Awards'', in its 10th year in 2005
* Toray has operations in 20 countries: Japan, China,
Hong Kong,
Taiwan,
South Korea,
Indonesia,
Malaysia (
Penfibre SDN Berhad),
Singapore,
Thailand, India,
Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy,
Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Mexico, and the United States
In 2013, Toray acquired an approximately 13% stake in Spectral Diagnostics, a Canadian pharmaceutical company focused on
sepsis.
In March 2018, Toray announced it would acquire TenCate Advanced Composites to advance carbon fiber production capabilities.
Gallery
See also
*
Composite material
*
Textile manufacturing
*
Alcantara (material)
*
Mitsubishi X-2
The Mitsubishi X-2 Shinshin (, formerly the ATD-X) is a Japanese experimental aircraft for testing advanced stealth aircraft, stealth fighter aircraft technologies. It is being developed by the Ministry of Defense (Japan), Japanese Ministry of D ...
References
External links
*
List of productsEntrant sports fabricsToray See
popular glass-cleaning cloth for eyewear or stemware
Pan Pacific Open Tennis Tournament
{{Authority control
Chemical companies based in Tokyo
Textile companies of Japan
Defense companies of Japan
Manufacturing companies based in Tokyo
Companies based in Osaka Prefecture
Mitsui
Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
Companies listed on the Osaka Exchange
Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange
Chemical companies established in 1926
Conglomerate companies based in Tokyo
1926 establishments in Japan
Eyewear companies of Japan
Japanese brands