BASF has started up a new plant for the production of chemical intermediates cyclopentanone (CPon) and cyclododecanone (CDon) at its Ludwigshafen Verbund site. CPon is a building block in active ingredients for pharmaceuticals.
The company has invested more than Euro 100m in the facility, which will create 48 jobs. It has a total production capacity of approximately 30,000 metric tons per year.
BASF says the facility will be the first to use nitrous oxide for industrial scale oxidation. This greenhouse gas, a by-product from another production process, serves as a starting material in the new facility. Other BASF byproducts are also used as ingredients. As a result the process is cost-efficient as well as sustainable and easy on the environment.
The operation uses a novel three-stage production process that BASF says has never before been used on an industrial scale.
The BASF Group's Intermediates division produces a portfolio of more than 600 intermediates. The most important of the division's product groups are amines, diols, polyalcohols, acids and specialities.