Lanxess is building the world’s largest plant for EPDM synthetic rubber in China. The German specialty chemicals company is investing € 235 million in the plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. According to Lanxess, this is the largest investment the company has made in China to date.

How do you live up to the promise of Operational Excellence? That was the theme for Yokogawa’s fourth EMEA user conference, which took place in Barcelona/Spain in September this year.

Bayer MaterialScience has commissioned a new technical center for the development of isocyanate production processes at Chempark Dormagen. The research center was erected in just under a year with an investment of €5 million.

Synbra Technology in the Netherlands had put a PLA (polylactic acid) plant into service. The plant can produce up to 5000 tons PLA per year and Synbra plans to further expand the capacity. Furthermore Sulzer decided to built its own 1000 tons a year PLA production plant to support customers in the development of new applications.

The world's biggest plant for neodymium polybutadiene rubber (Nd-PBR) takes the next step: Lanxess announced its € 200 million project to be well underway. Groundbreaking could be celebrated in September, CEO Heitmann said.

BASF will acquire the electrolytes business for high-performance batteries from German Chemical and Pharmaceutical Company Merck. The companies have agreed not to disclose financial details of the transaction.

By 2030, companies from the various chemical sectors will be engaged in fierce competition for additional market volume worth more than EUR 1 trillion. To do so, they will have to find a strategy that puts them ahead of the competition. These are key findings of the new study entitled "A different world – Chemicals 2030" by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

“Radar sensors were, are and will remain our flagship product!” With this clear statement, Vega is getting ready for the future. The market leader has proven with its plicsplus instruments Vegapuls 60 that even good things can be improved.

“Where ideas become solutions”—the theme of this year’s Global User Exchange for Emerson Process Management. Around 2,600 participants came together to share their experience covering all aspects of process automation in the US capital, Washington DC. One of the main topics was wireless. PROCESS reports to you from the
conference.

The continuing evolution of software solutions is changing the broad capability base of automation technology. Server-based solutions for production automation create new markets and applications for the IT industry.