Lanxess Buna GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of specialty chemicals company Lanxess, celebrated 40 successful years of production at its ethylene-propyele facility at Marl Chemical Park. One hundred and twenty-six employees and their families attended the ceremony at the chemical park’s information centre to celebrate the production facility’s long growth history. The company’s high-quality EPDM (ethylene-propylene-diene) synthetic rubber have high temperature-, water- and weather-resistance and are used in areas such as the automotive, aerospace, construction, electrical and electronics industries.
“We’ve been able to continuously increase our facility’s capacities in Marl throughout the years thanks to the growth in demand for our high-quality rubbers. This clearly demonstrates the excellent product quality we offer our customers here. Within the company, the site serves as a central pillar for our portfolio of high-performance EPDM rubbers,” said Thomas Mulder, Managing Director of Lanxess Buna GmbH.
“As site manager, I’m delighted this successful company has production operations at the Marl Chemical Park,” said Walter Tötsch, head of Marl chemical park operator Infracor GmbH. “Infracor in its role as site operator has been working with Lanxess Buna GmbH for many years. Through the strategic partnership, our ‘Technical Services’ unit has been closely integrated into the value-added chain since 2009. As well as know-how in production, a high level of creativity is needed to develop solutions for whole areas of industry over a long period. Lanxess Buna GmbH has managed this very successfully over the 40 years so far. I’d like to congratulate it for this and wish the company, its entire workforce and the Marl site all the best for the future.”
40 years of growth – milestones in the history of the ethylene-propylene facility in Marl
The Lanxess Buna GmbH ethylene-propylene facility, constructed in 1972, today covers an area of 4,500 square metres at the Marl Chemical Park. It has been continually expanded over the years, as the following chronicle of key milestones shows:
1972: Production starts at the ethylene-propylene facility in Marl with one compounding line and one polymerization line, annual capacity: 18,000 metric tons of EPDM rubber
1979: The second compounding line is launched, annual capacity: 27,000 metric tonnes of EPDM rubber
1985: The second polymerization line is launched, annual capacity: 45,000 metric tonnes of EPDM rubber
2005: Completion of a new extruder, annual capacity: 60,000 metric tonnes of EPDM rubber
2009: Launch of the pelleting plant, expansion of product portfolio to include easy-to-process EPDM pellets, total annual capacity of plant: 70,000 metric tons of EPDM rubber
Flexible properties, numerous areas of application
Keltan EPDM rubbers are used in numerous products – Marl rubber plays a key role in automotive engineering, whether in body seals, windshield wiper blades and glove compartments or under the engine hood in brake hoses, drive belts and tubing. In the construction industry, ethylene-propylene rubbers are frequently used as roof sheeting instead of conventional asphalt materials and in sealants, expansion joints, sound-insulating wall panels and bridge bearings. Keltan rubbers retain their excellent elastic force thanks to their outstanding water, ozone and weathering resistance, even at high temperatures.
Lanxess Buna GmbH is part of Lanxess’ Technical Rubber Products (TRP) business unit which, as well as in Marl, also operates EPDM facilities in Geleen, the Netherlands; Orange, United States; and Triunfo, Brazil. TRP is part of the Lanxess Performance Polymers segment, which achieved sales of EUR5.05 billion in FY 2011.
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