Evonik is reorganizing its business for high-performance polymers within the polyamide group. The specialty chemicals company has already begun construction of a new polyamide 12 (PA 12) facility complex and is expanding its production of transparent polyamides at the Marl Chemical Park, concentrating its activities on high-performance materials for growth markets such as the automotive, oil and gas, 3D printing, and optics industries. As part of the reorganization process, Evonik will withdraw entirely from the polyphthalamide (PPA) business at the Witten site by the end of the first quarter of 2020. Evonik will transfer employees from the PPA plant to its Marl site, where they will work at the new PA 12 production plant.
Evonik’s roughly €400 million investment in Germany will increase the company’s overall capacity for PA 12 by over 50%, according to the company. The project will complement existing PA 12 production at the Marl Chemical Park in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with additional plants for the polymer and its precursors. The facility complex is scheduled to go on stream in the first half of 2021.
Production expansion for transparent polyamides in Marl is slated for completion in the first quarter of 2020. The change will double the specialty chemicals company’s overall capacity for the high-performance material.
Evonik currently employs almost 300 people in Witten. The specialty chemicals company operates several production facilities for the production of organic substances on the approximately 16-hectare site which is one of the major production sites of raw materials for the paints, coatings and adhesives industry. In 2018, the group’s new production plant for specialty copolyesters at the Witten site went on stream.
For more information, visit: www.evonik.com
