Marl, Germany — Evonik Industries AG is pouring some 400 million euros ($447.8 million) into the reorganization of its high-performance polymers within the nylon group.
According to Ralf Düssel, the head of the high performance polymers business line at Evonik, the reorganization will allow the company to concentrate its production and innovative strengths on specialty materials for "promising applications in attractive markets" such as lightweight construction, additive manufacturing and composites.
Evonik has begun construction of a new nylon 12 facility, an investment that will increase the company's overall capacity for nylon 12 by more than 50 percent. The project will complement existing nylon 12 production at the Marl Chemical Park, with additional plants for the polymer and its precursors. The facility complex is scheduled to go on stream in the first half of 2021.
In addition, Essen, Germany-based Evonik is doubling its production of transparent nylons at the Marl Chemical Park site. The extra capacity will come on stream in the first quarter of 2020.
The company also announced it was discontinuing all polyphthalamide activities at its Witten, Germany, site by the end of the first quarter of 2020. Evonik will transfer employees from the PPA plant to Marl, where they will work at the new nylon 12 production plant.
Evonik currently employs almost 300 people in Witten. The specialty chemical company operates several production facilities for the production of organic substances on the nearly 40-acre 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.
