Covestro launches the production of Desmodur 15 prepolymers at its Spanish site of Barcelona. With this new production line, the company addresses the growing demand for its high-performance elastomers and can serve an ever wider range of very demanding applications, said the company.
"With this strategic investment, Covestro aims to further enlarge the capacity and improve the reliability of its global supply of Desmodur 15 based products," says Philip Bahke, Head of Operations at Covestro Elastomers.
"On top of addressing our customers’ demand, Covestro's Barcelona site has been operating entirely on renewable energy since the beginning of 2022," says Sucheta Govil, Chief Commercial Officer at Covestro. "This approach is part of our ambition to reduce our environmental impact while offering our customers greater access to our solutions and specialties products."
"We are opening the new production unit for our Desmodur® 15 prepolymers in Barcelona in parallel to the ongoing expansion of our NDI capacities in the Asia-Pacific region with the Map Ta Phut plant in Thailand," explains Thomas Braig, Head of Covestro Elastomers. "This new production unit will help us to support our customers’ growth in the cast polyurethanes high-end applications segment." The abbreviation NDI stands for naphthylene diisocyanate.
"Thanks to this new production line, our Vulkollan® licensees, as Desmodur 15 prepolymers processors, will be able to further develop their business," explains Abdel Arhzaf, Head of NDI-Vulkollan. "Through these investments, we intend to support the demand for ultra-high-performance elastomers used for superior applications as e.g. in the material handling industry and also for a growing number of engineering applications."
Combining the highest mechanical characteristics with dynamic load-bearing capacity, elastomers based on Desmodur 15 prepolymers are not only one of the most powerful cast polyurethanes in the market, they are also as easy to process as conventional prepolymers.
As per MRC, Covestro is expanding its production capacities for thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) Films in the Platilon range, as well as the associated infrastructure and logistics and schedules to complete the new facilities as early as the end of 2023.
We remind that Covestro closed the sale of its European polycarbonates (PC) sheets business to the Munich-based Serafin Group effective January 2, 2020. This includes key management and sales functions throughout Europe as well as production sites in Belgium and Italy.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall consumption of PC granules (excluding exports from Belarus) totalled 7,800 tonnes in January 2022, down by 4% year on year (8,100 tonnes a year earlier).
Covestro (formerly Bayer MaterialScience) is an independent subgroup within Bayer. It was created as part of the restructuring of Bayer AG from the former business group Bayer Polymers, with certain of its activities being spun off to Lanxess AG. Covestro manufactures and develops materials such as coatings, adhesives and sealants, polycarbonates (CDs, DVDs), polyurethanes (automotive seating, insulation for refrigerating appliances) etc. With 2021 sales of EUR 15.9 billion, Covestro has 50 production sites worldwide and employs approximately 17,900 people (calculated as full-time equivalents).
mrchub.com