Lubrizol hosts APAC innovation summit, launches TPU grades

Lubrizol hosted its first Asia-Pacific Innovation Summit in Shanghai, China, this week. The event brought together more than 150 industry leaders, technical experts, and strategic partners to explore emerging trends in material science, discuss innovation-driven collaboration, and define new pathways for sustainable industry growth.

“Diversified and rapidly evolving market demands are reshaping traditional industry models, propelling us toward an era of collaborative growth and value co-creation,” said Henry Liu, vice president, Lubrizol Asia Pacific. “Asia-Pacific, with its diverse markets, fast-paced innovation, and rich application scenarios, offers fertile ground for material science breakthroughs.

“Lubrizol remains deeply committed to a strategy that combines global perspective with strong local engagement. With an open and agile mindset, we position ourselves as a co-creator within the innovation ecosystem – placing market needs at the core. By building a complete ‘R&D-manufacturing-co-creation’ loop, we aim to accelerate the transformation of ideas into tangible value, helping our partners achieve growth and breakthroughs across dynamic market cycles. Ultimately, our Asia-Pacific innovation centers serve as bridges—localizing global technologies while transforming regional insights into globally relevant solutions, realizing the value transformation from regional innovation to global application.”

Lubrizol recently launched its Southeast Asia Innovation Center in Singapore and unveiled a new office in Jakarta. It is also actively expanding local production capacity for medical-grade thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) in Shanghai, further strengthening regional collaboration, innovation, and production capabilities.

The summit marked the regional debut of Lubrizol’s “next generation foam technology for sustainable footwear”. The company debuted its novel grades of Estane BCX TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) for physical foam solutions. These new Estane BCX AM and BCX HS TPU solutions, are specially formulated for melt- and solid-state physical foaming processes, and the company says these meet high-performance demands, enhancing production efficiency and promoting circularity.

The company says that, depending on the foaming process used, midsoles made with the new Estane BCX TPUs achieve properties such as densities down to 0.12 g/cm³ and vertical rebound up to 75%, demonstrating superior light weight, improved energy return and long-term performance stability. Lubrizol has established a Foam Application Center of Excellence in China and Korea to accelerate sustainable innovation across the footwear industry.

Shanghai skyline photo by Tian Dayong on Unsplash

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