BASF Starts Up Production Plant for Specialty Amines in Ludwigshafen

BASF in Ludwigshafen has started up a world-scale plant for the production of specialty amines. The multi-product plant can manufacture approximately 12,000 metric tons per year of a product range of about 15 amines for different applications. Owing to its high flexibility, the plant can also be used for the production of new specialty amines. The major applications are currently in the construction, automotive, crop protection and pharmaceutical industries. With the new facility, BASF expands its global production network for amines with plants in Ludwigshafen and Schwarzheide in Germany; Antwerp, Belgium; Geismar, North America; and Nanjing, China.

“With the new plant, we are responding to our customers’ growing demand for specialty amines, particularly in Europe,” said Dr. Stefan Blank, President, BASF Intermediates division. “We have decades of experience in developing and manufacturing amines and with the current expansion we are extending our global leadership in these versatile intermediates.”

“The special plant structure allows us to react flexibly to changes in the need for the various products. In addition, we can also produce commercial quantities of products from our innovation pipeline here,” said Dr. Christoph Wegner, Senior Vice President, heading the regional business unit Amines Europe within BASF’s Intermediates division, and adds: “Being integrated into the BASF Verbund at the Ludwigshafen site also allows us to offer our customers, apart from research, the scale-up services through a pilot plant, all the way to the new multi-product plant.”

With about 200 different amines, BASF has the world’s most diverse portfolio of these chemical intermediates. In addition to alkylamines, alkanolamines and alkoxyalkylamines, the company also offers heterocyclic and aromatic amines as well as specialty amines. The range is completed by an expanding portfolio of chiral amines with high optical and chemical purity. The versatile products have proven their effectiveness above all in the manufacture of crop protection products and pharmaceuticals, as well as in cosmetics, detergents and process chemicals. They are also needed to produce coatings, special plastics, composites and special fibers.