Toray To Launch 3GT fiber and fabric Business

Feb. 21, 2003

Toray To Launch 3GT fiber and fabric Business

Toray Industries, Inc. and Du Pont-Toray Co., Ltd. have teamed up to commercialize 3GT fibers and textiles featuring excellent stretch-ability and based on polyester 3GT polymers (PTT: polytrimethylene terephthalate). The two companies are currently intensifying their efforts to launch the 3GT fiber and textile business.

In preparation for the full-scale launch of the 3GT business, Toray's Mishima Plant recently completed new bicomponent fiber manufacturing facilities. They will have an annual output of 500 tons/year, and started production in October of last year. Toray plans to further expand the scale of the 3GT fiber business by increasing mainly bicomponent fiber production to a total of 2,000 tons/year by 2006.

These new facilities will enable the company's 3GT fiber and textile business, including homofibers and non-woven fabrics, to increase annual sales to 12 billion yen by FY2005 from the present level of 2 billion yen.

Toray plans to expand the applications of 3GT fibers and textiles, ranging from yarns to apparel textiles, including sports wear, men's and women's clothing, linings, underwear and swimming wear, as well as industrial applications.

This bicomponent fiber, that has mushroom-shaped cross section, comprise side-by-side composit yarns combining 3GT polymer with polyester. And Toray also start the business of fabrics using this yarn.

This fiber will be marketed under the brand name of "T-400" by Du Pont-Toray for next year's spring and summer seasons.

3GT fabrics, meanwhile, will be sold worldwide by Toray under the unified brand name of "Fitty" in the company's lineups for the 2003 spring and summer seasons. Fitty products will be promoted as 'prime stretch' materials, having new and previously unavailable, soft hand and recovery properties.

3GT bicomponent fiber has a quiet and soft feel, excellent color development with high durability attributable to good dye-ability, heat setting performance and dimensional stability. They also have overall durability including alkali and chlorine resistance, and physical properties such as abrasion resistance. These outstanding features are not lost even when the fabrics are combined with cotton or wool.

T-400, one of the 3GT products, has particularly good stretch-ability and 'recovery" properties since its reaction to heat shrinking and unique cross-sectional shape endow it with greatly improved crimp properties.

Along with ever more diversified consumer preferences, changing values, and sophisticated functional characteristics reflecting changes in the social environment in recent years, there have been increasing demands for development of innovative polyester clothing materials having qualities of stretch, softness, and good recovery. In this respect, great expectations are held for these revolutionary stretchable 3GT textiles. This is the latest development since the advent of polyurethane polymer and other spandex elastic fibers 40 years ago.

Toray and Du Pont-Toray are committed to working together with Du Pont Company of the U.S. with the aim of fostering the 3GT business now and in the future.

On May 30, 2001, Toray and Du Pont-Toray concluded a technological licensing and comprehensive agreement with Du Pont Company of the U.S. on the manufacture and marketing of 3GT polymer fibers.

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<Products>
A side-by-side bicomponent fiber based on 3GT polymers, and fabrics using it.

1) Yarn	T-400	Marketed by Du Pont-Toray Co., Ltd.
2) Textiles	Fitty	Marketed by Toray Industries, Inc.

<Technical Outline>
T-400 is a 3GT polymer-based side-by-side bicomponent fiber having a mushroom-shaped cross-section.

The realization of T-400 is a technological feat achieved by imparting an astounding degree of fine crimp to 3GT fibers in the heat treatment stage of Toray's proprietary fiber processing technology, making use both of the difference in heat shrinking rates among the constituent polymers and the mushroom-shaped cross-sections of the fibers.

This has led to the excellent 'soft-feel' and 'recovery' properties of Fitty, which were hitherto not available.

<Features>
1)Excellent 'soft-feel' and 'recovery' properties
2)smooth hand
3)High degree of dye-ability
4)Outstanding physical properties (high durability, heat setting properties, dimensional stability, alkali resistance, chlorine resistance, and abrasion resistance)
5)Availability of broader range and mix of products

	Broader product range from neat, clear lightweight fabrics to heavyweight products
	Wide assortment of products achieved through combination with ordinary polyester or natural fibers such as cotton and wool

<State of Patent Protection>
200 patents pending, including fiber and fiber processing fields

<Marketing Plans>
Yarn:

Sales goals:	First year: 400 million yen (approx. 300 tons)
	Third year: 2 billion yen (approx. 1,500 tons)

Sales price:1,200 ~ 1,500 yen/kg

Principal uses:Blending with natural fibers (such as cotton and wool)

Start of sales:From spring and summer seasons of 2003

Sales goals:	First year: 2 billion yen (approx. 100,000 pieces.)
	Third year: 8 billion yen (approx. 500,000 pieces)

Sales price:500 ~ 1,500 yen/m

Principal uses:

Sports wear, women's and men's clothing, linings, underwear, swim wear, uniforms and nursing-care wear


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