BASF to Boost Methane Sulfonic Acid Capacity

German chemicals firm BASF is making a “higher double-digit million euro” investment to expand methane sulfonic acid (MSA) production at its Ludwigshafen Verbund facility by 50,000 tn/yr, a company announcement said Monday. 

Construction recently commenced on a new manufacturing facility at the site, according to BASF. MSA is used in a variety of applications, including chemical and biofuel synthesis. 

“We want to meet our customers’ growing demand for high-quality, sustainable and high-performance technologies in the best possible way now and in the future. To achieve that, we continuously invest in expanding our capacities and production technologies,” Ralph Schweens, president of Care Chemicals at BASF, said in a statement. “To this end, we acquired an innovative process approach for producing MSA from Grillo-Werke AG in mid 2019 to strengthen our own R&D activities and to accelerate the development of a new manufacturing process for methane sulfonic acid. In doing so, we support as a reliable partner the growth of our customers across the world.”

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MSA produced at the new plant will be sold under the Lutropur brand to customers in European and Asian markets. The new production assets are slated to be operational by the end of 2021. 

Earlier this month, Powder & Bulk Solids reported that private equity firm Lone Star entered into an agreement to acquire BASF’s construction chemicals business for €3.17 billion in cash.

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