Evonik is repositioning its business within the polyamide group for high-performance polymers.
The company has started building of a new polyamide 12 (PA 12) facility and is expanding its production of transparent polyamides at Marl Chemical Park, focusing its activities on high-performance materials for attractive growth markets such as automotive, oil and gas, 3D printing and optics. The changes will double the company’s overall capacity for the high-performance material.
As part of the reorganization process, Evonik will withdraw entirely from the polyphthalamide (PPA) business at the Witten site in Germany by the end of the first quarter of 2020.
Evonik’s investment of about € 400 million in Germany will increase the overall capacity of the company for PA 12 by more than 50 percent. The project will add additional plants for the polymer and its precursors to existing PA 12 production at Marl Chemical Park in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In the first half of 2021, the facility complex is scheduled to go on stream.
“Reorganizing our polyamide business will concentrate our production and innovative strengths on specialty materials for promising applications in attractive markets such as lightweight construction, additive manufacturing, and composites. This, in turn, will give us a solid foundation for continuous growth,” says Dr. Ralf Düssel, the head of the High Performance Polymers Business Line at Evonik. “For our customers, the move will mean a more intense focus on developing sophisticated specialty solutions.”
“As we focus our marketing activities on high-performance polymers, we will be utilizing internal synergies to accommodate our long-serving Witten employees with secure jobs at the new polyamide 12 production facility in Marl, where we will be able to draw upon their decades of proven experience in polymer production and compounding,” says Dr. Iordanis Savvopoulos, Head of the Product Line Granules & Compounds at Evonik.
Biobased polymers from the Terra series remain in the business portfolio and will continue to complement Evonik’s now reorganized range of high-performance polymers.
