Specialty chemicals company LANXESS has officially opened a new formalin production plant at its Krefeld-Uerdingen site. The head of LANXESS' Advanced Industrial Intermediates business unit, Hubert Fink, and Krefeld’s mayor, Gregor Kathstede, officially opened the state-of-the-art plant today. Formalin is a feedstock for trimethylolpropane (TMP), a trivalent alcohol used for numerous products in, for example, the automotive, furniture and construction industries. The investment totals around EUR 18 million, creating five new jobs at the site. New formalin and methanol tanks have been constructed along with the plant and its 38-meter high tower on an area totaling 1,000 square meters.
"With our own formalin plant, we're enhancing our site in Krefeld-Uerdingen and continuing to expand our leading position as a manufacturer and supplier of TMP," said LANXESS’ Fink at the ceremony. "Producing formalin on site means we are no longer dependent on buying in this necessary feedstock, thereby also cutting transportation costs. We're also improving energy efficiency and helping to protect the environment thanks to a unique adsorber process."
"Uerdingen offers the perfect conditions for a cutting-edge company philosophy. By investing in formalin and menthol production, LANXESS has also boosted its own portfolio and Krefeld as a business location," said Krefeld's mayor, Gregor Kathstede. "I would like to thank those responsible for their commitment to the site in Uerdingen and I look forward to a future that continues to be shaped by successful partnership."
Using cutting-edge technology enables the new plant to produce high-grade formalin in a particularly energy-efficient and eco-friendly way. The plant is started up and shut down using a unique adsorber process that initially leaves all pollutants in the plant in order to then dispose of them thermally in controlled operation. Steam is also generated in formalin production and is fed into LANXESS' own TMP facility, making it largely independent of external energy supplies.
LANXESS inaugurates plant
