German specialty chemicals producer Lanxess has inaugurated its new €18 million polychloroprene solid rubber production expansion at Dormagen. This lifts output capability for the Baypren brand products at the site by 10% to 63,000 t/y.

The expanded facility uses the company's dedicated dry finishing production technology, which it says saves resources by reducing the number of production steps. As the rubber is dehydrated in a special extrusion device, less water, and thus wastewater, is said to be required, and with natural gas no longer needed to dry the rubber, less waste air is produced.

Lanxess also is adding two new types of this high-performance synthetic rubber, Baypren High Performance and Baypren Green Finishing, to the Dormagen site's portfolio. Both variants are to be manufactured on the dry finishing line.

The "green finishing" grades feature enhanced crosslinking, while the high performance grade benefits from further optimized flow behavior. "These properties help increase the speed of the injection molding process for technical moldings and reduce energy consumption," said Jan Paul de Vries, head of the high performance elastomers business.

The existing production lines will remain in operation to meet the continuing customer demand for traditional Baypren grades. The Dormagen facility, part of Lanxess' €4.5 billion Performance Polymers segment, employs some 250 people.