BASF plans to lift production capacity for 1,6-Hexanediol (HDO )by more than 50% at Ludwigshafen by 2021. The upgrade will bring total nameplate capacity for the chemical intermediate at its German headquarters site and Freeport, Texas to over 70,000 t/y.

The investment is in response to growing customer demand for high-performance formulations, globally, the group said.

With the capacity expansion, BASF will provide customers with more flexibility and reliability of supply, said Andrea Frenzel, president of the Intermediates Division The additional output in Ludwigshafen is earmarked mainly for Europe, but will also be sold on the fast growing Asian market, she said.

Frenzel added that the expansion is in line with the general trend for high performance and environmentally friendly technologies in the automotive, furniture and packaging industries,

HDO adds value in many applications by giving hydrolysis resistance, flexibility, adhesion and weatherability to the end-products, BASF said. It also serves as a raw material for environmentally friendly applications including low volatile organic compound formulations for coatings and adhesives.

Additional applications are in production of reactive thinners used to formulate  epoxy systems used in the manufacture of rotor blades for wind turbines in particular.