BASF has announced plans to build a world-scale production plant for formic acid at its integrated “Verbund” site in Geismar, La. As the only formic acid production plant in North America, it will create 20 new jobs and have an annual capacity of more than 50,000 tons. It is expected to start up in the second quarter of 2014.
BASF currently operates two formic acid production plants located at the its integrated Verbund sites in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and Nanjing, China, with a total annual capacity of more than 255,000 tons. The new plant is intended to allow BASF to better serve North and South America in markets that include pharmaceuticals, energy, animal nutrition, leather, and cleaning products.
An eco-friendly de-icing agent used on roads and airport runways, potassium formate is a salt of formic acid. It is also used in industrial applications for removing mineral deposits from desalination plants, refineries, and other processing industries.
For more information, visit http://www.basf.us.