ENGINEERINGNET.EU -- To this end the company has installed an additional crystallizer at the Leverkusen site, thereby enabling it to produce more high-purity para-dichlorobenzene.
Some EUR 3 million has been invested in the capacity expansion for this intermediate for the manufacture of high-performance plastics.
“Based on our estimates, the market for PPS will continue to grow by six to eight percent each year. We have expanded our capacity to grow along with our customers,” says Dr. Dirk Möckel, Global Marketing Director Chlorobenzenes, Derivatives & Monoisocyanates.
The Leverkusen production unit converts toluene and benzene into chloroaromatics by adding chlorine. In addition to low chlorinated aromatics such as monochlorobenzene, this process also produces higher chlorinated aromatics such as dichlorobenzene (DCB).
“Our aromatics know-how focuses primarily on demand-based isomer management and we are one of the few manufacturers worldwide to offer this capability,” states Dr. Hubert Fink, head of the Advanced Industrial Intermediates business unit.
DCB production involves high-purity isolation of the isomer para-dichlorobenzene (p-DCB) from a melt in a crystallization process downstream of distillation based on cooling and solidification that takes place in crystallizers.
The high-purity p-DCB obtained is used to produce the high-performance semi-crystalline plastic polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), which features excellent mechanical properties, resistance to chemicals, temperature resistance and flame retardance.
PPS has applications in the electrical/electronics, automotive and aviation industries. Some 90,000 metric tons of p-DCB were needed for the approximately 60,000 metric tons of PPS produced worldwide in 2012.
BACKGROUND
Lanxess' Advanced Industrial Intermediates (AII) has production sites in Germany (Krefeld-Uerdingen, Dormagen, Leverkusen and Brunsbüttel), China (Liyang), India (Nagda) and the United States of America (Baytown in Texas).
