New Delhi, October 3, 2013: Pluss Polymers, a polymers research and manufacturing company involved in the field of speciality polymeric additives and phase change materials for thermal energy storage is starting a new manufacturing unit at Bawal in October 2013. Bawal is an upcoming industrial area and is very close to Manesar, one of the biggest automobile hubs. It also falls on the much touted Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. Bawal-Manesar is slated amongst the first 7 integrated cities to come up on the DMIC by 2017.

The new manufacturing unit is a state-of-the-art facility covering an area of 10,000 sq.ft over three floors. It will be the first plant in the country to manufacture Shape Stabilised polymer composite phase change materials. "These materials will be used to create products to keep food hot or cold. It has already found a large market in the US. We are sure India will catch up soon," said Samit Jain, Managing Director, Pluss Polymers. Ankit Jhanwar, Manager, Corporate Planning at Pluss said "It will have automated form fill seal machine to handle a wide variety of packaging films to encapsulate phase change materials. Currently we are exporting PCMs to help maintain a temperature of 20 to 25?C consistently while transporting wines and certain bio/pharma products." A new twin screw extruder is slated to arrive mid of October which will increase the capacity of speciality polymers from 700 tonnes/annum to 1800 tonnes/annum.

Samit Jain also mentioned that the Bawal plant will be one of the first small scale industries to install a thermal energy storage system of 40 tonnes to maintain the temperature of the unit between 24-28?C. This will help save tremendous amount of diesel requirement given the poor situation of power in Haryana. It will also be a small contribution towards demand side management of electricity. The system indigenously designed and now on offer commercially for anyone, will run at night when power is available and economical to store the cold energy. During the day the stored energy will be used for air-conditioning of the laboratory and office spaces. The plant otherwise will use efficient evaporative cooling based ambiators to maintain a comfort temperature of 28?C.

The plant will also serve as the R&D centre for the company. A complete floor has been dedicated for the research activities consisting of equipment like UTM, Izod impact tester, film blowing unit, lab scale extruder, calorimetry, rheometer, temperature-history measurements for phase change materials and other equipment. It will also have a laboratory for chemical analysis along with facilities for testing applications of PCM like solar drying of vegetables and foods, a plate freezer to test extremely low temperature PCM, which will replace dry ice.

"The plant will serve as the centre for churning out innovating products. We envision putting Pluss on the world innovation map with consistent and pragmatic innovations. The company's mission is to provide solutions to create a definitive change in the polymers and thermal energy storage industry. We cannot predict the future, but we know that we are into innovative products for the long run," said Samit.

Headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana Pluss Polymers is engaged in the business of research, development and manufacture of specialized polymers and phase change materials (PCMs). The company's USP is constant and progressive innovation. Built on in-house R&D, Pluss has numerous firsts to its credit. It is the first company to manufacture grafted polymers and PCMs in India. It has patents on synthetic paper compounds and has currently filed four patents in the PCM space. Its customers amongst several others include AAPL, Kraiburg, Rhodia, HES Hacillar in the grafted polymer segment and Danone, Nestle and Promethean Power in the PCM segment.