BASF will invest up to €56 million in the expansion of its polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) value chain to as much as 6,000 t/y over the next four years through revamping of existing production facilities in Ludwigshafen, Germany and Geismar, Louisiana and introducing the technology at its site in Shanghai, China

BASF is the inventor and stakes as a claim as one of the market leaders for PVP. The world's largest chemical producer's global production network and technology leadership enable it to obtain "the highest levels of supply reliability" for its customers in multiple industries," said managing board member Michael Heinz.

"With this investment we are actively participating in the strongly growing PVP market, especially within the pharmaceutical industry," Saori Dubourg, president of the group's Nutrition & Health division, added.

The bulk of BASF's PVP capacities is sold to the pharmaceutical industry under the name Kollidon, The polymer is mainly used as an excipient in tablets with binding and disintegrant functionality. As a binder, BASF said, it enables the individual active ingredients of a tablet to form a homogenous entity and as a disintegrant ensures that the tablets break up in liquid and release the active ingredient quickly.

The group's PVP-based products are used in the cosmetic, detergent and food sector as well as for technical application such as in the production of membranes for dialysis and water filtration. The polymer is also used to produce specialty adhesives.