BASF start up employs new three-stage process
12 Dec 2009
After a two-year construction phase, BASF has started up a new plant complex for the production of the chemical intermediates cyclopentanone (CPon) and cyclododecanone (CDon) at its Ludwigshafen Verbund site.
The company has invested more than Euro100 million in the facility, which has a total capacity of about 30ktpa and will create 48 new jobs.The new facility will be the first to use nitrous oxide for industrialscale oxidation. This greenhouse gas, which is a by-product from another production process is used as a feedstock in the new plant.
BASF said it needed only five and a half years from the initial idea to startup of the operation which uses a novel three-stage production process. CDon is a raw material for producing laurolactam, an intermediate for polyamide 12. In addition, CDon is used in the synthesis of musk fragrances and UV stabilizers. CPon is used in the synthesis of crop protection products, active ingredients for pharmaceuticals.
