MOSCOW (MRC) -- BASF, the world's largest petrochemical compnay, has announced the expansion of its Seneca, South Carolina, USA, Platinum Group Metals (PGM) refining facility, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The company will invest double-digit millions in capital improvements to increase refining capacity to recycle precious metals from spent catalysts such as automotive catalytic converters. Recycled metal has as much as 90% lower CO2 emissions than metal from primary mines. By recovering the precious metals for reuse in fresh catalysts BASF closes the loop with circular economy solutions.
“This investment further strengthens our global leadership position in the spent automotive catalyst recycling market,” said Tim Ingle, Vice President, BASF Precious Metals Refining, Chemicals & Battery Recycling. “We are proud to enable the circular economy and to support our customers’, and our own, sustainability goals.”
BASF’s Seneca site produces precious metal catalysts and chemicals that are used by BASF customers to produce a wide variety of products, including herbicides, plastics, pharmaceuticals, automotive emission catalysts, fragrances and fertilizers.
As MRC reported earlier, in April 2020, Trinseo, a global materials company and manufacturer of plastics, latex binders and synthetic rubber, and BASF announced the intention to expand their businesses with the production of styrene monomer (SM) based on circular feedstock.
BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries.
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