BASF builds new specialty amines plant in Germany

BASF is building a new world-scale plant for the production of specialty amines in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Start-up of the facility with a total annual capacity of about 12,000 metric tons is scheduled for 2015. The product range of this flexible multi-product plant comprises 15 amines for different applications.

The major applications are in the construction, automotive, crop protection and pharmaceutical industries. With this new facility, BASF is expanding its global production network of amines with plants in Ludwigshafen and Schwarzheide in Germany; Antwerp, Belgium; Geismar, Louisiana; and Nanjing, China.

“With the new plant we are responding to our customers’ demand for specialty amines, particularly in Europe,” said Sanjeev Gandhi, President, BASF Intermediates division. “We have decades of experience in developing and manufacturing amines, and with the new plant we are reinforcing our global leadership position in these versatile intermediates.”

“This facility enables us to react flexibly to changes in the demand of individual products. We will also use it to produce commercial quantities of new products from our innovation pipeline,” said Dr. Christoph Wegner, head of the regional business unit Amines Europe within BASF’s Intermediates division. “Being integrated into the BASF Verbund at the Ludwigshafen site allows us to scale up products from R&D to pilot scale and to commercial production in this new multi-product plant for our customers.”

BASF had announced in March that it is building another new multi-product plant for the production of specialty amines at the BASF Verbund site in Nanjing, China. The main products of this plant, which is due to start-up operations in 2015, will be dimethylaminopropylamine (DMAPA) and polyetheramine (PEA).

With about 200 different amines, BASF has the world’s most diverse portfolio of this type of chemical intermediates. Along with alkyl-, alkanol-, alkoxyalkylamines, the company offers heterocyclic and aromatic as well as specialty amines. The range is completed by an expanding portfolio of chiral amines of high optical and chemical purity. The versatile products are used mainly to manufacture process chemicals, pharmaceuticals and crop protection products, as well as cosmetic products and detergents. They also serve to produce coatings, special plastics, composites and special fibers.