BASF will spend €2.5 million to expand capacity for waterborne automotive coatings at its Demarchi coatings site in Brazil's Sao Paulo state by 2014. The upgrade, which the German group said is in response to customer demand, will encompass both waterborne primer and basecoats.

Antonio Carlos Lacerda, senior vice president of the Functional Solutions segment and Infrastructure for BASF South America, said demand is being driven by new automotive production facilities in Brazil as well as by the trend to replace solvent-borne technology with waterborne processes.

BASF, which helped pioneer waterborne coatings development in the early 1990s, said its technology is eco-efficient because water replaces most of the organic solvent, thus reducing emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC). It also is claimed to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 20%.