BASF has decided to establish a wholly-owned world-scale production base for water treatment and paper chemicals in Nanjing, China, with the construction of a 40,000 t/a quaternized cationic monomers plant and a 20,000 t/a cationic polyacrylamides plant.
Cationic monomers are a key feedstock for cationic polyacrylamides which are used as organic flocculants in the water treatment industry and as retention aids in the paper industry.
The water treatment and papermaking industries are growing at a high rate in Asia, particularly in China. This is a result of substantial investment in water treatment infrastructure and strongly increasing paper consumption, fuelled by high growth in regional GDP. For the BASF, one of the leading suppliers to the water treatment industry, the two plants mark the first Asian manufacturing of these products. The plants are expected to start up production in the third quarter of 2012.
Accoring to Dr. Albert Heuser, President Market and Business Development Asia Pacific, the BASF plans to double its sales by 2020 for Asia Pacific.
