Specialty chemicals company Lanxess has opened a new production line for the manufacture of water-based compounds in Nantong, China. The business belongs to the company’s Urethane Systems (URE) business unit which also produces polyurethane dispersions, an important ingredient of the compounds.
Under the Pellart brand, these products are used in many functional coatings applications where high performance in terms of haptics, chemical resistance, gloss level, temperature tolerance, abrasion resistance and, above all, the lowest possible content of volatile organic compounds (VOC) are required. Typical application areas include flat materials for automobile interiors such as instrument panels, seats and door panels, but also decorative foils for consumers and industry.
There is a global trend toward water-based and therefore environmentally friendly products as Michael Timm, head of development for cast elastomers at URE, noted, “As the automotive industry will continue to switch from solvent-based to environment-friendly water-based coatings, we see strong potential with attractive growth rates.”
The company intends to supply customers in Asia from the new production line; short development times and customer proximity are provided by the coupling with an application development center, opened by Lanxess in Shanghai in June 2021.
