BASF to build new world-scale plant for specialty amines

BASF is building a new world-scale plant for the production of specialty amines in Ludwigshafen. Start-up of the facility with a total annual capacity of about 12,000 metric tonnes 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.

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 fibres.