on its Changshu platform. The
plant, part of Arkema’s Coating
Resins business unit, will serve
customers in the Asia Pacific
region with a full line of waterborne
emulsion polymers for coatings and adhesives applications.
This new plant, which represented
a $30 million investment, is located in
Arkema’s Changshu manufacturing complex, the company’s largest manufacturing complex worldwide.
“The full startup of this new fa-
cility is an important event for our
customers in the Asia Pacific region,”
said Richard Jenkins, global group
president of Arkema Coating Resins.
“We promised our customers local
manufacturing of innovative, market-
leading products, produced in a mod-
ern, automated facility with a focus
on consistent, repeatable quality, and
environmental responsibility. Our new
facility delivers on each of those com-
mitments and helps place Arkema in
the forefront of raw material suppli-
ers, both in the Asia Pacific region,
and globally.”
The plant produces a range of emul-
sion polymers used as binders for ar-
chitectural coatings, building and
construction products, adhesives and
specialty coatings. The products include
Encor acrylic and styrene acrylic latexes;
SNAP nano-acrylic polymers; Celocor
opaque polymers; and Encor Flex elas-
tomeric latexes.
In addition to the waterborne products produced in the new plant, the
company markets a comprehensive
line of coatings raw materials, including solventborne resins, powder coating
resins, and additives.
Ashland Adds Coatings
& Construction Lab to its
Shanghai Technical Center
Ashland Specialty Ingredients, a com-
mercial unit of Ashland Inc., has added
a coatings and construction lab in its
Shanghai Technical Center. With 20 ad-
ditional chemists, the newly expanded
technical center houses laboratory fa-
cilities for research and development,
application technology and services
for coatings and construction, personal
care, pharmaceutical, food and bev-
erage customers in China. The facil-
ity is located in Shanghai’s Caohejing
Industrial Park and currently employs
approximately 50 chemists.
Within the coatings sector, Ashland
offers analytical and testing resources
to continually assess market trends
and develop next-generation additives
that help customers improve the performance and value of their paint and
coatings products. In addition to architectural, industrial, specialty and wood
coatings, Ashland provides functional
additives for paint removers, universal
colorants and emulsion polymerization. In construction, Ashland products
perform in a variety of applications
including cement-based tile adhesives,
renders, concrete, external insulation
systems, mortar cements and self-leveling compounds. They provide functional properties including thickening
and rheology control, water retention,
adhesive strength, binding power, film
formation, conditioning and deposition, colloid stabilization, suspending
and emulsifying action.
BASF Produces First
Commercial Volumes of
Butanediol from Renewable
Raw Material
BASF has produced its first commercial
volumes of 1,4-butanediol (BDO) from
renewable raw material, and is offering this product to customers for testing and commercial use. The production
process relies on a patented fermentation
technology from Genomatica, based in
California. The fermentation process uses
dextrose as a renewable feedstock. The
quality of BDO based on renewable raw
material is comparable to petrochemical-based BDO. BASF plans to expand its
portfolio with selected BDO derivatives
based on renewable feedstock, including
Polytetrahydrofuran (PolyTHF).
BDO and its derivatives are used for
producing plastics, solvents, electronic
chemicals and elastic fibers for the pack-
aging, automotive, textile, and sports
and leisure industries, among others. The
starting materials for the production of
conventional BDO are natural gas, bu-
tane, butadiene and propylene. BASF
currently produces BDO and BDO
equivalents at its sites in Ludwigshafen,
Germany; Geismar, Louisiana; Chiba,
Japan; Kuantan, Malaysia; and Caojing,
China. In July BASF announced to in-
crease its global capacities for BDO to
650,000 metric tons and for Poly THF to
350,000 metric tons within the coming
two years.
Chromaflo Technologies
and CPS Color’s Colorants
Business Combine
Global supplier of pigment and chemical
dispersions Chromaflo Technologies and
integrated tinting specialist CPS Color’s
colorant business combine to create one
of the leading independent global colorant system and pigment dispersion platforms worldwide, serving customers in
architectural and industrial coatings as
well as the thermoset plastics markets. As
a result of the combination, the former
CPS Color Equipment Business Unit will
become a standalone company under the
well-known brand name COROB.
The new colorants and dispersions
specialist will operate under the name
Chromaflo Technologies and will be
headquartered in Ashtabula, Ohio, with
production facilities in the U.S., Canada,
the Netherlands, Finland, Australia and
China. Sales and technical support will
also be provided throughout North and
South America, Europe, Australia, China,
India and South East Asia. Chromaflo
Technologies will have global sales,
manufacturing and technical capabilities
with revenue in excess of $400 million
annually.
The CPS Color Group’s Equipment
Business, which includes dispensing, mixing and shaking equipment, is not included in the combination with Chromaflo
and CPS Colorants and will become a
standalone company operating under the
name COROB.
With an installed base of over
100,000 units, COROB generated €78
million of turnover in 2012 selling dispensers, mixers and shakers. COROB
will continue to be owned by Nordic
Capital Fund VI. CW
