BASF Ultrason® goes into Kyoraku's reusable Amberware design tableware

On 25 July 2025 BASF announced that it supplies its high-performance specialty plastic Ultrason® to Kyoraku, a leading Japanese plastic products manufacturer. Kyoraku added the Amberware design tableware line to its housewares portfolio using the material; the product shown is the amberplate L dish.

The grade is Ultrason® E 3010 nat, a polyethersulfone (PESU). It carries a bright, transparent amber colour and can be used in the microwave and the dishwasher alike (specification below). BASF pointed to how few limits the material places on shape, colour and transparency — broad latitude for housewares and catering design — and to its high impact strength. Tableware made from Ultrason® is far lighter than ceramic and does not shatter, so Kyoraku offers a lifetime guarantee against cracking and breakage, and says performance and safety are retained even as the colour deepens over long use.

“The amber that deepens over time adds to the design appeal”

Yoshida described Amberware as a plastic product designed on the assumption of long service, and said he hopes customers keep using it for years without concern about performance or safety.

Nami Lohbeck, who leads global business development for Ultrason® at BASF, called the collaboration with Kyoraku a case that demonstrates the sustainability of Ultrason®, and said tailored grades let households and food service develop reusable takeaway cups and tableware, bottles for hot tea and water, and recyclable catering plates. Reusable tableware was presented as an alternative that displaces single-use plastic and cuts packaging waste from households, catering and takeaway.

For sale in Korea the governing standard is the MFDS notification on standards and specifications for utensils, containers and packaging. Synthetic-resin articles are subject to both a resin-specific specification and the common migration limits, so the first checks are whether the resin is a listed material and which migration tests apply. Importing resin and moulding locally adds a separate procedure under the Special Act on Imported Food Safety Control. A manufacturer datasheet and food-contact statement are the starting point for that check, not a substitute for domestic conformity.

A word on the grade names. In the Ultrason® E family a higher number means higher viscosity: E 1010, E 2010, E 3010. Higher-viscosity grades favour toughness and chemical resistance but flow less easily. Using one in something as thin and wide as a plate suggests the tool and the process were built around it. Sulfones are typically injection moulded above 340°C and pre-drying is mandatory — skip it and you get silver streaks and reduced properties.

If you are reviewing a similar product, there is an order to it. First, whether your machine reaches 340°C and whether you have drying capability. Then pick the viscosity that suits your wall thickness and flow length, and confirm food-contact approval for the target market. Wash durability is not on the typical-property sheet, so it needs cycle testing at service conditions. Colour is not the last question but possibly the first: the amber comes from the molecular structure and cannot be coloured out.

If Europe is in the plan, the sequence changes. PESU is built on BPS (bisphenol S), and EU Regulation 2024/3190 restricts bisphenols in food-contact materials. Where food contact is confirmed, the answer within the family is polyphenylsulfone (PPSU), which is made without BPA or BPS.

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