At a cost of €12 million and in response to environmental legislation, Lanxess has commissioned a new biological wastewater treatment plant at its site at Kallo, near Antwerp. This has a capacity of 260,000 L/hour and also treats wastewater from two other companies. The site makes rubber chemicals and glass fibres.
Lanxess and Standard Lithium have signed an agreement under which the latter will conduct a front-end engineering design study to evaluate the economic viability and technical feasibility of an industrial-scale, battery grade, lithium carbonate plant at Lanxess’ site at El Dorado, Arkansas. This follows 20 months of testing at a pilot plant.
The final results are expected in Q4, the two companies stated. If the study is completed successful, Standard Lithium could build a plant at its own expense at one of the three sites in El Dorado.
At the cost of “a single-digit million euro amount”, Lanxess’s Material Protection Products (MPP) business unit is expanding capacity for the active ingredient Preventol CMK (chlorocresol) at Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany, by around 50%. This will be completed within Q1 the firm said.
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Lanxess has signed a corresponding agreement to acquire the microbial control business of International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) for $1.3 billion or 9.6x EBITA. The deal should be completed in Q2 2022, following a carve-out process and subject to regulatory approvals. This is the firm’s second largest ever buy, just ahead of the recently completed acquisition of Emerald Kalama.
Two workers have been confirmed dead after an explosion at Chempark Leverkusen in Germany at around 09.40 on 27 July and a subsequent fire in the tank farm of the Bürrig disposal centre that sent a blanket of smoke across the city and was heard 40 kilometres away.
Lanxess has announced that it will be entering the battery chemistry business from 2022. It will produce electrolyte formulations for lithium-ion batteries for China’s Guangzhou Tinci Materials Technology using a plant operated by Saltigo in Germany. Further details were not disclosed.
