Industry News
Lanxess starts up sugar cane power plant
Lanxess has started up a new on-site power plant at its location in
Porto Feliz, Brazil. This will increase
the efficiency and environmental
compatibility of the on-site production of iron oxide pigments, which
are marketed globally as Bayferrox
and regionally as Po Xadrez. The
innovative, highly efficient cogener-ation plant for the production of
electricity and steam has a capacity
of 4. 5 MW and achieves an efficiency
of up to 90%. It is powered by
bagasse, a fibrous component of
sugar cane that is left over after
sugar production. Thanks to the use
of this renewable, environmentally
friendly raw material, energy can be
produced on a CO2-neutral basis.
The amount of CO2 released is
exactly the same as that previously
absorbed by the sugar cane crops
during growth.
The project was launched in 2008
and cost approximately € 8 million.
The start-up of the new cogenera-tion plant is enabling the company
to cut CO2 emissions at the site significantly. Annual climate gas emis-
PRICING CHANGES
Ashland Performance Materials: April
1–$0.03/wet lb. increase homopolymer and
copolymer vinyl-acetate emulsions, and
vinyl-acrylic emulsions in North America.
Celanese: April 1–$0.03/lb. increase for
all vinyl acetate homopolymer and vinyl
acetate ethylene emulsions sold in North
America.
Clariant: April 1–increase for its line
waxes.
Huntsman: April 1–€100/ton increase in
Europe, $0.05/lb. increase in North
America and $150/ton increase in Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and Middle
East for all its titanium dioxide pigments.
sions will be approximately 44,000
metric tons of CO2 equivalents less
than in 2002.
PERSTORP OPENS
APPLICATION LAB IN INDIA
Perstorp has opened a new application laboratory in Ghatkopar, a suburb of Mumbai, India. The laboratory will assist application R&D
experts with the exploration of new
formulations and developments in
paint, coatings and resins. Perstorp
has also recently expanded its sales
and marketing organization in India
to better support customers and
plans to continue to recruit further
competence
MILLION EURO INVESTMENT IN
NEW TECHNOLOGY BY EVONIK
In developing custom-designed color
solutions for customers in the global
paint and coatings industry, color
accuracy is the first priority—but
speed is also of the essence. Evonik’s
Colorants Product Line is now
responding to customer demands for
an increasingly shorter time to market by means of a million-euro
investment: HTE (high throughput
experimentation) technology. This
highly automated experimentation
at its Maastricht facility to service
its global Colorant business, will
increase the quality of the results as
well as reduce the development time
for colorant design.
“HTE reduces our time-to-market
to a minimum, enabling maximum
flexibility and rapid handling of lab
work,” said Matthias Creutz, head of
Evonik’s Colorants business. “Re-
search has shown that a critical suc-
cess factor for colorants customers is
the time interval between the
screening of a new colorant and its
market launch. By investing in HTE
we will set a new global standard in
the colorant development process,
thus providing our customers a clear
advantage over their competitors.”
Apart from greater flexibility and
quicker results, HTE technology
offers the additional advantage of
further improvements in product
quality.
ARCH CHEMICALS RECEIVES
EPA REGISTRATION FOR DENSIL
DG 45 AND VANQUISH 100
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has granted registrations of Densil DG 45 antimicrobial
and Vanquish 100 antimicrobial,
developed by Arch Chemicals, Inc.
for use in building product applicators. Both Densil DG 45 and
Vanquish 100 are broad-spectrum
antimicrobials that inhibit the
growth of bacteria, fungi and algae,
preventing odor, staining and premature product failure. These products are a part of an extensive product line for interior and exterior
paints, wallboard, ceiling tiles, flooring materials and carpeting that
tackle the growing problems of mold,
mildew and bacteria.
