is a global

chemical A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...

and specialty materials company. The company was founded in 1935 in

Yamaguchi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Yamaguchi Prefecture has a population of 1,377,631 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 6,112 Square kilometre, km2 (2,359 Square mile, sq mi). ...

, as Toyo Soda Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and in 1987 changed its name to Tosoh Corporation. Today, its corporate headquarters are in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, Japan. It began as a manufacturer of chlor-alkali and

petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable s ...

commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. Th ...

and feedstocks. Today it produces other kinds of products including electrolytic manganese dioxide (EMD), specialty

polymers A polymer () is a substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, b ...

, fine chemicals, scientific instruments, and thin-film materials. The Tosoh Group globally comprises more than 130 companies and includes manufacturing and marketing facilities in East Asia, Europe and the United States. The company is listed on the first section of the

Tokyo Stock Exchange The , abbreviated as Tosho () or TSE/TYO, is a stock exchange located in Tokyo, Japan. The exchange is owned by Japan Exchange Group (JPX), a holding company that it also lists (), and operated by Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc., a wholly owned sub ...

and is a constituent of the

Nikkei 225 The Nikkei 225, or , more commonly called the ''Nikkei'' or the ''Nikkei index'' (), is a stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). It is a price-weighted index, operating in the Japanese yen, Japanese Yen (JP¥), and its compone ...

stock index In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market perform ...

. Tosoh's Nanyo complex has an annual vinyl chloride monomer production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes, the primary chemical intermediate of

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

plastic. Tosoh is a member of the Mizuho keiretsu. Tosoh acquired in 2006 and absorbed into Tosoh in 2014.

Business groups and products

Tosoh Corporation is divided into 13 business divisions that are organized into five groups: Petrochemical, Chlor-Alkali, Speciality, and Engineering. The fifth group is composed of support services, including logistics, construction, engineering support, and other support activities. Listed below are the five groups and their primary products: * Petrochemical Group ** Olefins:

ethylene Ethylene (IUPAC name: ethene) is a hydrocarbon which has the formula or . It is a colourless, flammable gas with a faint "sweet and musky" odour when pure. It is the simplest alkene (a hydrocarbon with carbon–carbon bond, carbon–carbon doub ...

propylene Propylene, also known as propene, is an unsaturated organic compound with the chemical formula . It has one double bond, and is the second simplest member of the alkene class of hydrocarbons. It is a colorless gas with a faint petroleum-like o ...

and

polypropylene Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer Propene, propylene. Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefin ...

tert-Butanol ''tert''-Butyl alcohol is the simplest tertiary alcohol, with a formula of (CH3)3COH (sometimes represented as ''t''-BuOH). Its isomers are 1-butanol, isobutanol, and butan-2-ol. ''tert''-Butyl alcohol is a colorless solid, which melts nea ...

, and aromatics. **

Polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

s: LDPE, LLDPE, HDPE,

synthetic rubber A synthetic rubber is an artificial elastomer. They are polymers synthesized from petroleum byproducts. About of rubber is produced annually in the United States, and of that amount two thirds are synthetic. Synthetic rubber, just like natural ru ...

, polychloroprene rubber, etc. * Chlor-Alkali Group ** Basic Chemicals:

calcium hypochlorite Calcium hypochlorite is an inorganic compound with chemical formula , also written as . It is a white solid, although commercial samples appear yellow. It strongly smells of chlorine, owing to its slow decomposition in moist air. This compound is ...

sodium hydroxide Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a white solid ionic compound consisting of sodium cations and hydroxide anions . Sodium hydroxide is a highly corrosive base (chemistry), ...

, chlorinated paraffins, sodium bicarb, vinyl chloride monomer, and polyvinylchloride. ** Methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI). ** Cement:

Portland cement Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar (masonry), mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in th ...

, blast-furnace slag cement, and fly ash cement. * Specialty Group ** Organic Chemicals: organic intermediates, ethyleneamines, flame retardants, polyurethane catalysts,

benzyl alcohol Benzyl alcohol (also known as α-cresol) is an aromatic alcohol with the formula C6H5CH2OH. The benzyl group is often abbreviated "Bn" (not to be confused with "Bz" which is used for benzoyl), thus benzyl alcohol is denoted as BnOH. Benzyl a ...

, hydrocarbon based solvents, piperazine, sodium styrene sulfonate, and bromochloropropane(BCP). ** Advanced Materials: silica glass, sputtering deposition targets,

zeolites Zeolites are a group of several Microporous material, microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate minerals commonly used as commercial adsorption, adsorbents and Catalysis, catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, oxygen, and have the ge ...

zirconia Zirconium dioxide (), sometimes known as zirconia (not to be confused with zirconium silicate or zircon), is a white crystalline oxide of zirconium. Its most naturally occurring form, with a monoclinic crystalline structure, is the mineral ba ...

injection mold and grinding media, battery materials, and

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , commonly found in nature as quartz. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one of the most complex and abundant f ...

. ** Bio-science: automated

immunoassay An immunoassay (IA) is a biochemical test that measures the presence or concentration of a macromolecule or a small molecule in a solution through the use of an antibody (usually) or an antigen (sometimes). The molecule detected by the immunoassay ...

and glycohemoglobin analyzers, high-performance liquid chromatography ( HPLC), molecular analyzers, chromatographic

resins A resin is a solid or highly viscous liquid that can be converted into a polymer. Resins may be biological or synthetic in origin, but are typically harvested from plants. Resins are mixtures of organic compounds, predominantly terpenes. Comm ...

size-exclusion chromatography Size-exclusion chromatography, also known as molecular sieve chromatography, is a chromatography, chromatographic method in which molecules in Solution (chemistry), solution are separated by their Chemical structure, shape, and in some cases molec ...

instruments, laboratory

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

solutions and services, and reagents. ::The Specialty Group focuses on products for high-tech industries such as semiconductors, consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare. * Engineering Group **

Water Treatment Water treatment is any process that improves the quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The end use may be drinking, industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, water recreation or many other uses, ...

* Other Services Group ** Analytical Services **

Information Technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

** Personnel Management **

Logistics Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the Consumption (economics), point of consumption according to the ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Chemical companies based in Tokyo Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Companies in the Nikkei 225 Chemical companies established in 1935 1935 establishments in Japan