Germany’s Lanxess has commissioned a new compounding line for the engineering plastics PA and PBT, sold under the trademarks of Durethan and Pocan, at Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany. The 10,000 t/y upgrade cost €7 million.

The Cologne-based specialty chemicals producer, which counts itself as one of the world’s leading suppliers and developers of high-performance compounds based on PA 6, PA 6.6 and PBT, said the upgrade was in response to increasing demand from the automotive and electrical/electronic industries. It did not disclose overall compounding capacity.

Stefanie Nickel, head of compounding in the High Performance Materials business unit, said the new line is well suited for compounding glass fiber-reinforced polyamides used in the structural light-weighting of automobile as well producing compounds with high mineral content, used in thermally conductive housing parts for miniaturization of electronic assemblies. She said Lanxess also sees “great potential” in flame-retardant compounds for components in electric drives.

In addition to Krefeld-Uerdingen and another German site at Hamm-Uentrop, Lanxess operates compounding lines in all economic regions where it has customers, including Wuxi, China; Jhagadia, India; Gastonia, North Carolina, USA and Porto Feliz, Brazil.  In 2019, it will start up a compounding plant in Changzhou, China, with capacity to produce around 25,000 t/y.

Apart from compounding, Lanxess also is a leading producer of the world’s PA 6 base resins. Operating polymerization facilities at Krefeld-Uerdingen and Antwerp, Belgium. At the German site, it also produces PBT polymer.