viscose staple fibre
 
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Viscose Staple Fibre
Grasim is India's pioneer in Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF), a man-made, biodegradable fibre with characteristics akin to cotton. As an extremely versatile and easily blendable fibre, VSF is widely used in apparels, home textiles, dress material, knitted wear and non-woven applications.

Grasim's VSF plants are located at Nagda in Madhya Pradesh, Kharach in Gujarat and Harihar in Karnataka, with an aggregate capacity of 333,975 tpa.

Nagda
Nagda is its largest unit producing a wide range of VSF to suit customer requirements in terms of length, denier and colour and also second and third generation fibres like Modal, Excel and Solvent Spun fibres, respectively. Nagda is also the largest producer of spun-dyed specialty fibre in the world.

Harihar
The Harihar unit houses facility for manufacture of both VSF and rayon grade pulp, the basic raw material for VSF. The company's Rayon Grade plant was the first in India to use totally indigenous wood resources with in-house technology for producing rayon pulp with an innovative oxygen bleaching
process to reduce the use of chlorine.

Kharach

The VSF plant at Kharach, set up in 1996, employs the most modern technology giving it a competitive edge in the export market.

Joint Ventures (JV)
Grasim has the following joint ventures overseas:

AV Cell Inc. and AV Nackawic Inc. in Canada
AV Cell and AV Nackawic supply dissolving grade pulp to the Group’s VSF units in India, Thailand and Indonesia.


Birla Lao Pulp & Plantation Limited in Laos
To further strengthen the backward integration in pulp, Birla Lao has been formed as a JV with other associate companies for raising captive plantations at Laos. This will provide a low cost source for wood to meet future requirements of a green field pulp plant in due course of time.

Birla Jingwei Fibres Company Limited in China
The company originally promoted as a joint venture with Fujian Jingwei Group in 2006 for manufacturing VSF is now a 100 per cent Aditya Birla Group company. Currently, this plant has the capacity to produce 70,000 tpa of VSF.

This spread and scale of operations make the Group's VSF operations very cost competitive. Moreover, vertical integration into plantation, manufacturing of rayon grade pulp and horizontal integration into production of principal raw material required for VSF production, namely, caustic soda, intermediate inputs namely CS2, sulphuric acid along with captive power and steam generation facilities, further enhance its competitive edge.

Research & development
Grasim has established a very strong R&D base covering different stages of the value chain.

Grasim Forest Research Institute, Harihar is involved in R&D of forestry. Birla Research Institute for Applied Sciences (BRI), Nagda is involved in the development of different generations of cellulosic fibres. Textile Research Application Development Centre (TRADC) at Kharach, a NABL accredited Lab, is involved in addressing research and development related to downstream textile value chain comprising various fibres, yarns, processing, garments, etc.

With the capability to offer the entire range of cellulosic fibre under the umbrella brand of “Birla Cellulose”, Grasim has positioned itself as a dependable supplier of cellulosic fibres for “Feel, Comfort & Fashion” across global markets. To penetrate into niche market segments and to grow further, the division has ventured into the production of high performance viscose fibres aptly named Viscose Plus, High Wet Modulus Fibres (Modal) and new generation Solvent Spun Fibres and Birla Excel.

Grasim is also the largest producer of Sodium Sulphate, a byproduct of VSF manufacture. This chemical is widely used in the paper and pulp, detergent, glass and textile industries.

Capacities at a glance
Division
Capacity
Viscose staple fibre
(Nagda in Madhya Pradesh, Harihar in Karnataka and Kharach in Gujarat)
333,975 tpa
Joint venture — Birla Jingwei Fibres Company Limited (China)
70,000 tpa
Rayon grade pulp
(Harihar in Karnataka)
70,000 tpa
AV Cell Inc.
(Atholville, New Brunswick in Canada)
122,500 tpa
AV Nackawic Inc.
(Nackawic, New Brunswick in Canada)
189,000 tpa

Contact us
Century Bhavan, 3rd floor
Dr. Annie Besant Road
Worli, Mumbai - 400025
India
Tel: 91-22-2421-0182-86
Fax: 91-22-2422-0892 / 24300579
Email: m.samuel@adityabirla.com

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