High-Temperature Polymers for Aerospace & Defense
The other half of Nexam Chemical: polyimide crosslinkers and a composite resin, sold into formulators rather than converters, and invisible in both the news flow and the segment reporting.
Nexam Chemical is usually discussed as a recycling company. It has a second business that is older, smaller in the news flow and technically further from plastic waste: chemistry for polymers that have to survive temperatures where ordinary plastics fail. This page sets out what the company actually sells there, and what the absence of news about it means.
What the products are
Two product families carry the high-temperature business.
Neximid crosslinkers for polyimides are end-cappers and monomers that cure at defined temperatures, which is how a formulator controls when the network forms. The company publishes the grades with their chemical names and curing ranges:
| Grade | Chemistry | Curing range |
|---|---|---|
| Neximid 100A | 4-Phenylethynylphthalic anhydride | about 330 to 400 °C |
| Neximid 200 | 4-Ethynylphthalic anhydride | about 230 to 290 °C |
| Neximid 300 | 5-(3-Phenylpropioloyl)-1,3-isobenzofurandione | about 190 to 230 °C |
| Neximid 400 | 4,4'-(1,2-Ethynyl)bisphthalic anhydride | about 380 to 440 °C |
| Neximid 500 | 4-Methylethynyl phthalic anhydride | about 280 to 330 °C |
NEXIMID R331 is a different kind of product: an addition-curable, fully imidized oligoimide resin for composites, which the company states has a melt viscosity of about 500 mPas at 280 °C and a glass transition temperature above 330 °C. Low viscosity at temperature is what makes resin transfer molding and out-of-autoclave production possible, which is the argument for it.
The claimed applications are polyimide prepregs, varnishes and coatings, aerospace composites, electronics and insulating materials, and high-temperature adhesives. No customer, programme or third-party test report is named on either page.
Why this is a different business from recycling
The recycling products are masterbatches sold by the tonne into converters' existing lines, where the argument is process stability. These are specialty chemicals sold into formulators' recipes, where the argument is a property the alternative cannot reach at all. Qualification is slower, volumes are smaller, and switching is rarer once qualified.
High temperature is the part of this company that looks like a specialty chemicals business. Recycling is the part that looks like a volume additive business. They do not behave the same way in a downturn, and the reporting does not separate them.
What the news flow says, and does not say
Every commercial announcement from the company since September 2025 concerns recycling, lightweighting or distribution. The high-temperature announcements are older: increased order volumes from the Japanese partner Sumitomo Bakelit in July 2024, a first order for wire coating in May 2024, a first full-scale order from a structural composites manufacturer in October 2024, a repeat order stated at 17 MSEK from a long-standing United States customer, also in October 2024, and the Innovate UK funded TAPE-X composites project in March 2025.
An absence of news is not an absence of business. It does mean that anyone valuing this segment is working from order announcements that are more than a year old.
The reporting does not show it separately
The company's own descriptions of its structure do not agree with each other. Its about page names four areas: Reactive Recycling, Lightweighting, High Temperature and Aesthetics. Its investor page names three focus areas: polyethylene pipe, polyester foam and high performance plastics. Its interim report for the second quarter of 2026 uses two reporting segments, Performance Masterbatch and Performance Chemicals, and gives only growth rates for them: masterbatch up 7%, chemicals up 16% against the same quarter of 2025, with group net sales of 60.0 MSEK and the first positive operating result in the company's history.
High temperature is therefore not a line you can read off the accounts. It sits inside Performance Chemicals along with other business, and the split is not published.
Sources
- Nexam Chemical, polyimide crosslinkers, for the grades and curing ranges.
- Nexam Chemical, high temperature composite resin, for the R331 figures.
- Nexam Chemical, about us and investors, for the conflicting descriptions of the business areas.
- Interim report January to June 2026, for segment growth and group figures. The quarterly figures are also in our data room, with their sources.
Independent research, not affiliated with Nexam Chemical and not investment advice.