<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=452><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Published September 22, 2009
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Secrets of synthetic rubber
Lanxess is keeping everything about its new butyl development under wraps
By RONNIE LIM
ENERGY EDITOR
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'YOU'RE asking for the secrets of the next generation of butyl!' Lanxess chairman Axel Heitmann said teasingly, when asked about the elements of its latest synthetic rubber or butyl technology breakthrough during a Q&A session.
<TABLE class=picBoxL cellSpacing=2 width=100 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR class=caption><TD>Exploring the chemistry: Lanxess' butyl plant in Zwijndrecht employs about 400 people and produces five grades of synthetic rubber, initial capacity of 30,000 tpa capacity in 1963 has been boosted to 130,000 tpa today -- <COPYRIGHT></COPYRIGHT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Significantly, this occurred at a scientific colloquium organised by the German chemicals group in Cologne on Sept 12 to mark exactly 100 years since the process for making synthetic rubber was discovered by chemist Fritz Hofmann. Companies such as Lanxess have built upon that first discovery to innovate and produce over recent years other synthetic rubber derivatives that provide more useful properties including resistance to weather, fire and oil.
It's no wonder that like an alchemist who discovered the magic of turning dust into gold, Lanxess is keeping everything about its new butyl development under wraps. Nothing slips out, not even innocuous details such as the amount of energy and raw materials that it expects to save with the new technology.
In the coming year or two, it intends to fully develop and scale up the technology and equipment - which it only recently developed in its laboratories - to be able to implement it in its planned Singapore plant starting up in 2014, Dr Heitmann explains. The 400 million euro (S$832 million) plant - which will be its biggest in Asia - will produce butyl and halobutyl which will go mainly into making inner tubes and liners for tyres.
Just as the first synthetic rubber made from chemicals was meant to substitute for, and compete with, more expensive natural rubber tapped from rubber trees, Lanxess, with its latest butyl innovation, wants to stay among the butyl market leaders which counts biggies such as ExxonMobil and China's Sinopec. This is critical, given that synthetic rubber now accounts for half of the German chemical group's total sales, which in 2008 was 6.6 billion euros.
Last week, we made a 'time travellers' leap in synthetic rubber's century-long journey - crossing the Schelde river from the cobble-stone 'old town' in Antwerp to Lanxess' butyl plant in nearby Zwijndrecht to find out about its butyl, or at least, the current-generation product.
The Belgium butyl plant is one of only two that Lanxess has worldwide, the other being in Sarnia, Canada. A Malaysian colleague and myself were surprised to learn that we were the first journalists to visit in about five years.
There was also deja vu, as the 15-minute drive to the Zwijndrecht plant reminded me of crossing the Whampoa River from Shanghai to Pudong's spanking new chemicals park.
Lanxess' butyl plant sits smack in a vast chemicals and energy belt (including nuclear and wind power) stretching from Antwerp to nearby Rotterdam. Together, the two cities form the largest chemicals cluster in the world - bringing with them all the synergies, such as raw materials and logistics, which such an integrated site has.
There, we got a peep into what Lanxess' future Jurong Island facility will likely look like, though of course, not yet including the new process technology.
Dispelling my early memories of m&d-brown, ribbed natural rubber sheets coming out of strong-smelling rubber smokehouses, butyl is produced using just chemical raw materials in a sanitised, chemicals plant environment. The final product emerges as pure-white synthetic rubber crumbs, which are then pressed into bales before finding their way to the tyre makers including Michelin and Bridgestone.
The only tell-tale signs of this being a synthetic rubber plant are the microscopic bits which find their way onto one's shoe soles on the otherwise spotless production floor.
The butyl process looks ultra simple. Zwijndrecht uses chemical feedstocks such as isobutene and isoprene - supplied by petrochemical complexes in nearby Rotterdam - which, when mixed with other catalysts and cooled to minus 95 degrees Celsius, becomes butyl rubber. Being impermeable to air, this makes it ideally suited for making inner tubes for tyres.
Making tyres safer The plant also has the flexibility to produce a further product, halobutyl, which is made by reacting butyl rubber with halogens such as chlorine and bromine. Tyre makers use this halobutyl to make inner liners in tubeless car, truck and aircraft tyres. These help to make tyres safer - by preventing them from deflating regardless of speed - and last longer.
It was the availability of the higher olefins feedstocks which led Lanxess to pick Singapore for its butyl plant investment. The plant here will be supplied chemicals such as isobutene from Shell's new multi-billion dollar cracker which is starting up next year.
Just like Zwijndrecht, the 100,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) Singapore plant will produce both key products - halobutyl and regular butyl rubber - with the bulk destined for the mega China market.
Frank Vandecruys, operations manager of the Zwijndrecht plant - which employs about 400 people and produces five grades of synthetic rubber - said that Lanxess has been investing through the years in the facility, whose initial capacity of 30,000 tpa capacity in 1963 has been boosted to 130,000 tpa today.
Its latest project is a 60 million euro in-house cogeneration plant to produce steam and about 55 MW of electricity 'to help cut energy costs', he said, explaining that butyl plants are very energy-intensive to operate. The cogen plant, which will be fully operational by year-end, is also environmentally friendly and will help cut the plant's carbon dioxide emission by about 80,000 tonnes annually.
'But while energy is a significant cost, it is still below the cost of the raw materials,' Mr Vandecruys stressed - which explains why Lanxess now wants to reduce the costs of both through its new butyl process technology. Furthermore, the new process will also be more environment-friendly.
Back in demand
Because of falling butyl demand from tyre makers, Zwijndrecht, like its sister plant in Sarnia, Canada, had to shut down in January this year. 'But we were pleasantly surprised when demand came back again, and the plants went back up again after just two months,' he said.
Eddy Walraven, the general manager of Zwijndrecht, was more circumspect, saying that 'while the plant is running flat out again for the moment, we don't know what's going to happen next month', adding: 'We see positive signals of a recovery in Asia, but car plants in Europe are still shut down. Plants for trucks and buses are also still down.'
In the first half of this year, Lanxess' performance polymers group (involving butyl rubber) had sales of one billion euros, compared with 3.3 billion euros last year, 'which suggests the butyl market has not recovered yet', he cautions.
Lanxess is therefore taking opportunity of the earlier-announced two-year delay in construction start of the Singapore plant to complete its development of the breakthrough butyl technology, so that it can be incorporated into the facility - which will be its largest in Asia.
In addition to its collaboration with two other German firms and two German universities to develop the new technology, Lanxess is currently discussing internally which of its plant sites - whether Zwijndrecht, Sarnia or another chemicals plant in Dormagen - to use for a pilot project to test the new butyl manufacturing process.
'We expect this decision on the pilot plant site to be made very soon, as we need to do this before construction starts on the Singapore plant (around mid-2011),' Mr Walraven said, mindful that its next generation butyl is scheduled to start coming out of its Jurong Island facility come 2014.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=452 colSpan=2>Secrets of synthetic rubber
Lanxess is keeping everything about its new butyl development under wraps
By RONNIE LIM
ENERGY EDITOR
<TABLE class=storyLinks border=0 cellSpacing=4 cellPadding=1 width=136 align=right><TBODY><TR class=font10><TD width=20 align=right>
</TD><TD>Email this article</TD></TR><TR class=font10><TD width=20 align=right>
</TD><TD>Print article </TD></TR><TR class=font10><TD width=20 align=right>
</TD><TD>Feedback</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>'YOU'RE asking for the secrets of the next generation of butyl!' Lanxess chairman Axel Heitmann said teasingly, when asked about the elements of its latest synthetic rubber or butyl technology breakthrough during a Q&A session.
<TABLE class=picBoxL cellSpacing=2 width=100 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR class=caption><TD>Exploring the chemistry: Lanxess' butyl plant in Zwijndrecht employs about 400 people and produces five grades of synthetic rubber, initial capacity of 30,000 tpa capacity in 1963 has been boosted to 130,000 tpa today -- <COPYRIGHT></COPYRIGHT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Significantly, this occurred at a scientific colloquium organised by the German chemicals group in Cologne on Sept 12 to mark exactly 100 years since the process for making synthetic rubber was discovered by chemist Fritz Hofmann. Companies such as Lanxess have built upon that first discovery to innovate and produce over recent years other synthetic rubber derivatives that provide more useful properties including resistance to weather, fire and oil.It's no wonder that like an alchemist who discovered the magic of turning dust into gold, Lanxess is keeping everything about its new butyl development under wraps. Nothing slips out, not even innocuous details such as the amount of energy and raw materials that it expects to save with the new technology.
In the coming year or two, it intends to fully develop and scale up the technology and equipment - which it only recently developed in its laboratories - to be able to implement it in its planned Singapore plant starting up in 2014, Dr Heitmann explains. The 400 million euro (S$832 million) plant - which will be its biggest in Asia - will produce butyl and halobutyl which will go mainly into making inner tubes and liners for tyres.
Just as the first synthetic rubber made from chemicals was meant to substitute for, and compete with, more expensive natural rubber tapped from rubber trees, Lanxess, with its latest butyl innovation, wants to stay among the butyl market leaders which counts biggies such as ExxonMobil and China's Sinopec. This is critical, given that synthetic rubber now accounts for half of the German chemical group's total sales, which in 2008 was 6.6 billion euros.
Last week, we made a 'time travellers' leap in synthetic rubber's century-long journey - crossing the Schelde river from the cobble-stone 'old town' in Antwerp to Lanxess' butyl plant in nearby Zwijndrecht to find out about its butyl, or at least, the current-generation product.
The Belgium butyl plant is one of only two that Lanxess has worldwide, the other being in Sarnia, Canada. A Malaysian colleague and myself were surprised to learn that we were the first journalists to visit in about five years.
There was also deja vu, as the 15-minute drive to the Zwijndrecht plant reminded me of crossing the Whampoa River from Shanghai to Pudong's spanking new chemicals park.
Lanxess' butyl plant sits smack in a vast chemicals and energy belt (including nuclear and wind power) stretching from Antwerp to nearby Rotterdam. Together, the two cities form the largest chemicals cluster in the world - bringing with them all the synergies, such as raw materials and logistics, which such an integrated site has.
There, we got a peep into what Lanxess' future Jurong Island facility will likely look like, though of course, not yet including the new process technology.
Dispelling my early memories of m&d-brown, ribbed natural rubber sheets coming out of strong-smelling rubber smokehouses, butyl is produced using just chemical raw materials in a sanitised, chemicals plant environment. The final product emerges as pure-white synthetic rubber crumbs, which are then pressed into bales before finding their way to the tyre makers including Michelin and Bridgestone.
The only tell-tale signs of this being a synthetic rubber plant are the microscopic bits which find their way onto one's shoe soles on the otherwise spotless production floor.
The butyl process looks ultra simple. Zwijndrecht uses chemical feedstocks such as isobutene and isoprene - supplied by petrochemical complexes in nearby Rotterdam - which, when mixed with other catalysts and cooled to minus 95 degrees Celsius, becomes butyl rubber. Being impermeable to air, this makes it ideally suited for making inner tubes for tyres.
Making tyres safer The plant also has the flexibility to produce a further product, halobutyl, which is made by reacting butyl rubber with halogens such as chlorine and bromine. Tyre makers use this halobutyl to make inner liners in tubeless car, truck and aircraft tyres. These help to make tyres safer - by preventing them from deflating regardless of speed - and last longer.
It was the availability of the higher olefins feedstocks which led Lanxess to pick Singapore for its butyl plant investment. The plant here will be supplied chemicals such as isobutene from Shell's new multi-billion dollar cracker which is starting up next year.
Just like Zwijndrecht, the 100,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) Singapore plant will produce both key products - halobutyl and regular butyl rubber - with the bulk destined for the mega China market.
Frank Vandecruys, operations manager of the Zwijndrecht plant - which employs about 400 people and produces five grades of synthetic rubber - said that Lanxess has been investing through the years in the facility, whose initial capacity of 30,000 tpa capacity in 1963 has been boosted to 130,000 tpa today.
Its latest project is a 60 million euro in-house cogeneration plant to produce steam and about 55 MW of electricity 'to help cut energy costs', he said, explaining that butyl plants are very energy-intensive to operate. The cogen plant, which will be fully operational by year-end, is also environmentally friendly and will help cut the plant's carbon dioxide emission by about 80,000 tonnes annually.
'But while energy is a significant cost, it is still below the cost of the raw materials,' Mr Vandecruys stressed - which explains why Lanxess now wants to reduce the costs of both through its new butyl process technology. Furthermore, the new process will also be more environment-friendly.
Back in demand
Because of falling butyl demand from tyre makers, Zwijndrecht, like its sister plant in Sarnia, Canada, had to shut down in January this year. 'But we were pleasantly surprised when demand came back again, and the plants went back up again after just two months,' he said.
Eddy Walraven, the general manager of Zwijndrecht, was more circumspect, saying that 'while the plant is running flat out again for the moment, we don't know what's going to happen next month', adding: 'We see positive signals of a recovery in Asia, but car plants in Europe are still shut down. Plants for trucks and buses are also still down.'
In the first half of this year, Lanxess' performance polymers group (involving butyl rubber) had sales of one billion euros, compared with 3.3 billion euros last year, 'which suggests the butyl market has not recovered yet', he cautions.
Lanxess is therefore taking opportunity of the earlier-announced two-year delay in construction start of the Singapore plant to complete its development of the breakthrough butyl technology, so that it can be incorporated into the facility - which will be its largest in Asia.
In addition to its collaboration with two other German firms and two German universities to develop the new technology, Lanxess is currently discussing internally which of its plant sites - whether Zwijndrecht, Sarnia or another chemicals plant in Dormagen - to use for a pilot project to test the new butyl manufacturing process.
'We expect this decision on the pilot plant site to be made very soon, as we need to do this before construction starts on the Singapore plant (around mid-2011),' Mr Walraven said, mindful that its next generation butyl is scheduled to start coming out of its Jurong Island facility come 2014.
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