Clariant opens new personal care laboratory in Tokyo, Japan

Muttenz, November 6, 2017 – Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, announces the opening of a new laboratory in Tokyo dedicated exclusively to supporting Japan's Personal Care industry.

Located inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute (TIRI) in Tokyo's central business district, the new laboratory offers local customers easy access to technical facilities and expertise to boost their research and development activities. The facility supplements Clariant's existing Shizuoka Technical Service Center in providing industry customers with more opportunities for collaboration early on in their formulation development.

Clariant's new laboratory will take advantage of the TIRI's support on commissioned analytical work through various equipment and facilities available at the Institute. The TIRI was founded in 2006 under the financial support of the Tokyo government to provide local industry with rapid and flexible technological support.

"The laboratory will open a new door to our customers in the personal care industry who, in order to speed up response to market, have a growing need for technical support early on in the development stage of their new products. Our Tokyo laboratory, which is within half an hour reach of Tokyo station, gives us the opportunity to interact more closely with local customers through such means as co-development meetings and technical seminars, enabling us to better support their product needs," says Francois Bleger, Head of Clariant's Industrial and Consumer Specialties Business Unit in Asia Pacific.

In addition to the commissioned facilities available at the Institute, Clariant's Tokyo laboratory is set up with equipment and facilities such as an incubator and viscometer necessary for running low-impact experiments and testing. Clariant's existing Shizuoka Technical Service Center will continue to be the core laboratory for synthetic experiments with chemical reactions requiring high temperatures, high pressure, decompression or the generation of strong odor.

Clariant has provided technical expertise and production-related support to Japan's Personal Care industry for more than 30 years. This includes pilot-scale testing of various technical processes at the Shizuoka Technical Service Center. To support future product development, the new Tokyo laboratory aims to create an environment for open innovation with customers, and deliver technical support for formulation development tailored to the country's Personal Care needs.