Twaron is the brandname of Teijin Aramid for a para-aramid. It is a heat-resistant and strong synthetic fibre developed in the early 1970s by the Dutch company AKZO, division Enka, later Akzo Industrial Fibers. The research name of the para-aramid fibre was originally Fiber X, but it was soon called Arenka. Although the Dutch para-aramid fiber was developed only a little later than DuPont's Kevlar, introduction of Twaron as a commercial product came much later than Kevlar due to financial problems at the AKZO company in the 1970s.

This is a chronology of the development of Twaron::

Twaron is a p-phenylene terephtalamide (PpPTA), the simplest form of the AABB para polyaramide. PpPTA is a product of p-phenylene diamine (PPD) and terephtaloyl dichloride (TDC). To dissolve the aromatic polymer Twaron used a co-solvent of N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) and an ionic component (calcium chloride CaCl₂) to occupy the hydrogen bonds of the amide groups. Prior to the invention of this process by Leo Vollbracht, working at the Dutch chemical firm AKZO, no practical means of dissolving the polymer was known. The use of this system by DuPont led to a patent war between AKZO and DuPont as Dupont initially used the carcinogenic HMPT (hexamethylphosphoramide). Despite heavy research DuPont now also uses the AKZO patent to use the less hazardous NMP in the Kevlar process.