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(Benicia, Calif., U.S.), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kaneka Americas Holding Inc. (Pasadena, Tex., U.S.), announced the startup of its Benecia, California-based prepreg operations.

The new, state-of-the-art filming and prepreg equipment have been installed and is now fully functional. These new capabilities in combination with existing resin manufacturing capabilities will reportedly extend Kaneka Aerospace’s position in the value chain for existing and future customers.

The highly automated line is equipped with in-process quality control instrumentation, which enables real-time defect recognition and process adjustments. The new equipment is capable of producing carbon and glass fiber prepregs from 140 to 1,100 gsm areal weight and up to 50 inch wide.

The culture at Kaneka Aerospace is centered around innovation. Technical core competencies include high-temperature and high-strength materials, with future emphasis on environmentally friendly solutions. The company says it strives to bring novel high-performance composites to the market with accelerated speed of development; Kaneka has also invested heavily in laboratories equipped with mechanical, physical and analytical testing capabilities to achieve such targets. 

Kaneka Aerospace additionally creates value through integrating its molecular design competence with formulating expertise to deliver next-generation products with differentiating features. Among these, customers could expect its multifunctional products to increase processing speed, thus providing higher assembly build rates.