LANXESS to enlarge its menthol facility in Krefeld
LANXESS AG
The groundbreaking ceremony on July 20 was attended not only by Fink and a number of LANXESS employees but also by a five-man delegation from Symrise AG, including its CEO, Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram.
LANXESS supplies Symrise with menthol and the menthol precursor thymol in the full range of grades, also in purities needed by the pharmaceutical industry.
Efficient process for sustainable production
The extended production facility will make use of a new, highly efficient catalyst developed by the LANXESS research team. The major raw material cresol stem from the own AII production network on the Lower Rhine.
An energy recovery unit will be installed that has been developed together with the LANXESS Innovation group function. It will further improve the energy balance (CO2 footprint) for menthol.
As part of the construction project, three large distillation columns will be erected in fall 2011. The largest will be about 50 meters tall and it was designed by LANXESS engineers specifically for this purpose. "A column of such dimension is special for our plant," said production manager Dr. Lutz Heuer. Assembly of the enormous structural elements will begin once they have been delivered to their destination in Uerdingen – an operation that will require special transportation as a heavy load. "We will use three cranes, one of which has a lifting capacity of 900 metric tons and is the largest available in Germany. It will also enable us to lift the heaviest single element, which weighs 90 metric tons," said Heuer.
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