Degussa.

In an effort to meet the rapidly growing demand for precipitated silica used in key industrial applications, Degussa will increase manufacturing capacity for the product by 30 to 50 million pounds per year within North America by 1997. Scheduled for the company's existing precipitated silica plant in Chester, PA is an expansion which would add capacity of up to 30 million pounds per year. The ISO 9002 certified facility first came on stream in 1984. Degussa is also in the final stages of planning a 30 to 40 million-pounds-per-year manufacturing facility for precipitated silica in Mexico. Site selection and other specific details related to construction and raw material supply have yet to be finalized. This expanded capacity will enable Degussa to pursue new high-performance product application avenues for precipitated silica. markets. The new company, Bytewise Measurement Systems, will initially market the company's Profilometer high precision off-line laser measurement system for profiling extruded rubber components and automatically computing variations from design parameters in terms of thickness, break-point and shoulder locations and cross-sectional area parameters.