Under the new joint venture agreement, BASF and Heraeus will establish a new company called ‘BASF Heraeus (China) Metal Resource Co.’ in China. The collaboration will enable a circular economy solution as precious metals will be recovered from spent automotive catalysts in the country.

Located at BASF’s Antwerp site, the new production plant for alkylethanolamines will help the company to increase its global capacity by 30 % to more than 140,000 metric tons annually. Start-up of the project is expected to be in 2024.

With the new plant, BASF has replaced its existing production unit at the Ludwigshafen Verbund site in Germany which has been in operation since the past 40 plus years. The new facility has the same production capacity as the previous plant of more than 10,000 metric tons of 2-mercaptoethanol per year.

Under a long-term agreement signed between Linde and BASF, Linde will build and operate a new hydrogen production facility at Chalampé, France in order to supply hydrogen and steam to BASF’s new hexamethylenediamine manufacturing facility in the country.

BASF has plans to invest a three-digit million-dollar amount for modernizing the chloroformates and acid chlorides production facilities at its Ludwigshafen Verbund site in Germany. With this move, the capacity of these products at the site is expected to increase by 30 %.

PROCESS Worldwide brings to you the ‘Top 10 plant engineering projects of February 2022’ from all over the world. Right from China’s first megaton CCUS project to developing Europe’s first lithium refinery, find out all the projects making headlines here.

BASF has plans to develop a new hexamethylene diamine (HMD) plant in Chalampé, France which will help to expand the company’s HMD production capacity to 260,000 metric tons every year. The firm is also planning to expand its polyamide 6.6 business in Freiburg, Germany.

BASF has entered into an agreement with China BlueChemical and Wuhuan Engineering to develop and supply innovative catalysts, special reactor design and related process technology that enable CO2 direct utilization via reforming and synthesis gas to chemicals. The deal focuses on the utilization of marine gas with a high CO2 content and will help to reduce carbon footprint via improved process efficiency and carbon efficiency.

With this acquisition, Clariant aims to expand its Functional Minerals business in the Americas and further enhance the company’s position in renewable fuels purification. The deal is expected to close in summer this year.

BASF has plans to establish a separate mobile emissions catalysts business due to the massive shift in the automotive industry towards the sustainable electromobility market. The new business is expected to prepare for the changes in the internal combustion engine market. Also, the company’s massive investment in battery materials and recycling will further strengthen this segment.