Leverkusen - The investments made by specialty chemicals group LANXESS AG in its ion exchange resin production facilities in Bitterfeld and Leverkusen are certainly bearing fruit. Jean-Marc Vesselle, head of Global Product Management and Strategic Development in the Ion Exchange Resins business unit, is delighted: “Now completed, the investment program – which cost a total of EUR 9 million – is well proving its worth. In the last 18 months, the plants have increased production volumes of our extremely popular premium product Lewatit by more than ten percent.” On June 26, 2008, Bitterfeld plant manager Dr. Gerold Schade, his Leverkusen colleague Dr. Wolfgang Zarges and their respective teams were duly honored for their achievements and production records by Dr. Michael Zobel. The head of the Ion Exchange Resins business unit presented them with awards as part of the celebrations to mark the commissioning of a new Lewatit production line in Leverkusen.

The expansion of the ion exchange resin facility at the site brings a considerable and urgently needed increase in capacity. “Demand for high-quality ion exchange resins has risen dramatically. Our order books are full. To cope with the growth in demand, we had to add a further production line to our plant in Leverkusen,” explains Vesselle. For Vesselle, it was extremely important that customers could be supplied with the required amounts as quickly as possible without any compromises in terms of quality. According to plant manager Zarges, the necessary building work was completed in only eight months. “For a project of this scale, we would normally reckon with a period of 18 months between authorization being granted and the first product coming off the line,” he remarks. Zarges also points out an additional achievement: “Although the building work was carried out in a plant that has been working at full capacity for two years, it did not have any significant impact on the plant’s output.”

In addition to the Leverkusen plant and the world’s largest production facility for monodisperse ion exchange resins in Bitterfeld, a new ion exchange resin plant in India is expected to be operational from 2010. LANXESS is constructing a new site in the Jhagadia Chemical Park near the city of Baroda in Gujarat state at a cost of around EUR 50 million. Among other applications, the new facility will manufacture products for industrial water treatment and the generation of ultra-pure water for the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries. The company is also to relocate production of rubber chemicals from Thane in the Indian state of Maharashtra to Jhagadia.

For more than 60 years, premium products from the Lewatit range have stood for high-quality ion exchange resins, adsorbers and functional polymers for treating liquids. They make a key contribution in areas such as water treatment for industry, semiconductor production and household use, and industrial wastewater and process stream treatment. Lewatit grades are also used in the preparation of solutions in the food and beverage industries, chemical catalysis and pharmaceutical biofermentation.

The Ion Exchange Resins business unit belongs to the Performance Chemicals segment, which achieved total sales in 2007 of EUR 1,970 million.