SK Innovation said Wednesday its new material subsidiary will construct a plant for lithium-ion battery separators in Poland next year, aiming to be the global market leader.

The energy and chemical affiliate of SK Group decided last month to spin off its material unit as a subsidiary in order to expand its business.

Establishment of the new subsidiary will be completed by April 1, when its official name will be revealed.

With the subsidiary’s launch, the firm seeks to increasing production capacities for LiBS, a core material for batteries in electronic devices and electric vehicles. 

The new factory, with an annual production capacity of over 340 million square meters of LiBS in the Silesia region in Poland, will break ground in the third quarter of 2019 and start mass production in the third quarter of 2021.

In South Korea, the company will add two new production facilities in Jeungpyeong, North Chungcheong Province, by November. It has a total of 13 factories with an annual production capacity of 530 million square meters.

It is currently building another LiBS plant in Changzhou, China.

When the new facilities in Poland, China and Korea are completed, SK will produce a total of 1.21 billion square meters of LiBS worldwide annually.

Such expansion of production capacities would help the company rise from the current No. 2 position to the top in the global LiBS market. 

SK Innovation said its new subsidiary will also start mass production of the flexible cover window material for foldable electronic devices such as smartphones this October in Jeungpyeong. It will seek to expand the production of FCW in the near future as demand for the material is highly expected to rise.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)