BASF has decided to establish a wholly-owned world-scale production base for water treatment and paper chemicals in Nanjing, China, with the construction of a 40,000 t/a quaternized cationic monomers plant and a 20,000 t/a cationic polyacrylamides plant.

The two BASF plants, which are designed to high international standards of safety and energy efficiency, are expected to start up production in the third quarter of 2012. They mark the first Asian manufacturing of these products for BASF.

Cationic monomers are a key feedstock for cationic polyacrylamides. Cationic polyacrylamides are used as organic flocculants in the water treatment industry and as retention aids in the paper industry.

The water treatment and papermaking industries are growing at a high rate in Asia, particularly in China. This is a result of substantial investment in water treatment infrastructure and strongly increasing paper consumption, fuelled by high growth in regional GDP.