BASF SE is adding capacity for nylon 6/6 resin and feedstocks in Europe.

Nylon 6/6 resin capacity will be added in Freiburg, Germany, this year. The firm also is building a new plant making hexamethylene diamine feedstock Chalampé, France, with production expected to start in 2024.

The HMD plant will have annual production capacity of about 570 million pounds. No capacity data for the nylon 6/6 expansion was included in a news release from Ludwigshafen, Germany-based BASF.

In the release, company officials said that the planned investments will further expand the nylon 6/6 business that BASF acquired from Solvay in 2020.

"With this new HMD plant in Chalampé and the expansion of the polymerization in Freiburg, BASF ensures that customers can be reliably supplied with HMD and [nylon 6/6], while also addressing increasing demand in the market," Monomers President Ramkumar Dhruva said.

BASF's nylon 6/6 materials are used in the automotive industry as well as in the production of special fibers. At the Fakuma 2021 trade show, company officials said that the firm's materials are being used in motors, batteries and battery cases in electric vehicles. The firm's polyurethane foams also have EV applications. EV material demand in 2021 is up from both 2019 and 2020, they added.

BASF makes a wide range of specialty plastics and chemicals. Globally, the firm employs more than 110,000 and had 2020 sales of more than $69 billion.

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