BASF has recently announced the commercial launch of Fourtune, a new Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) catalyst product for gasoil feedstock. The new FCC is the latest product based on BASF’s Multiple Framework Topology (MFT) technology.

BASF has broken ground on the second phase of its Innovation Campus Asia Pacific at its Pudong site in Shanghai, China. The €90 million expansion consists of an additional regional research and development (R&D) building and auxiliary facilities and it will be completed by the end of 2015.

In many chemical industry plants, a safety controller ensures the required level of safety — in the event of danger, it switches off. In order to do justice to this task, it decides, like a watchman, which signals from the field level may be forwarded to higher-level systems and which not. Field device diagnostics for maintenance and optimization have so far been left out of the scope. For the first time, a solution jointly developed by Endress+Hauser and Hima also grants access to advanced diagnostics from instruments applied in safety loops.

Air Liquide and BASF have recently signed three new long-term contracts in the Antwerp basin (Belgium). Leveraging on five existing onsite production plants in the Antwerp basin, the industrial gases specialist has entered into a new 15-year agreement to renew its airgas supply to existing installations and provide additional oxygen to a new Ethylene Oxide plant to be built by BASF.

The new platform – recichain has been introduced in British Columbia, Canada with an aim to enhance the circularity of plastics in the supply chain. Sorting, traceability and transparency of plastics throughout the value chain will also be improved via this platform.

BASF and Domo Chemicals have successfully completed the acquisition of Solvay’s Performance Polyamides business. Under the agreement, Domo Chemicals has acquired Solvay's performance polyamides production sites in France while BASF has acquired all the Performance Polyamides activities of Solvay except those acquired by Domo Chemicals.

German chemical giant BASF announced the construction of a new plant for polyalkylene glycol (PAG)-based lubricants at its Ludwigshafen site. The manufacturing facility will start operations by the beginning of 2016 and produce PAG lubricant base stocks and formulated blends.

A report by Brandessence Market Research titled ‘Industrial Catalyst Market’ predicts the global industrial catalyst market to be valued at 24.44 billion dollars by 2025. The report highlights that the Asia Pacific region will dominate the overall market across the globe.

The coating of directly compressed mini-tablets in a pan has not been extensively utilised; however this process shows advantages over the fluid bed. The following study investigates the possibility of manufacturing a sustained release multiple dosage form by coating in a solid wall pan mini-tablets produced by direct compression.

Domo Chemicals announced that it has completed its acquisition of Solvay’s Performance Polyamides Business in Europe. This Business includes Engineering Plastics operations in France and Poland; High Performance Fibers in France; Polymer and Intermediates operations in France, Spain and Poland.