Celgard Welcomes President Barack Obama to its Charlotte, NC Headquarters and Manufacturing Facility

04/12/2010

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Celgard, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Polypore International, Inc. (NYSE: PPO), and a leading global supplier of microporous separators used in lithium-ion batteries, welcomed President Barack Obama to its Charlotte, NC headquarters and manufacturing facility on Friday, April 2.

The President toured Celgard’s facilities and held a town-hall meeting where he discussed job creation, the economy, energy policy, health care and other topics with Celgard and other Polypore employees.

“We were honored to host the President and we valued our discussions with him about our growth in North Carolina,” said Celgard General Manager Mitch Pulwer. “His administration’s support of advanced battery production for the Electric Drive Vehicle market in the United States has allowed us to accelerate our growth plans and begin hiring the people who will support the manufacture of this critical component for lithium batteries.”

Celgard is expanding capacity at its manufacturing operations in Charlotte and building a new manufacturing facility in Concord, NC to support increasing demand in the Electric Drive Vehicle (EDV) market. The expansion project is expected to add more than 200 jobs within Celgard and more than 1000 jobs among Celgard’s suppliers. This expansion is supported in part by $49 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Electric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative, as well as significant investments by Polypore, and support from the State of North Carolina and local county and city economic development entities.

More than 60 jobs have already been created within Celgard since the grant was awarded to support the expansion that is underway at the Charlotte facility.

Celgard is America’s largest single company currently in the lithium ion battery supply chain and a leading supplier of lithium-ion battery separators to the world market. Celgard® separators are primarily used in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for personal electronic devices such as notebook computers, mobile telephones, digital cameras, power tools, reserve power and electricity grid storage systems and now, EDVs. These separators play a critical role in the performance, life and safety of lithium battery cells by providing a barrier between the positive and negative electrodes – preventing short circuits while controlling the exchange of lithium ions from one side of the battery to the other.