Bayer Slates $50 Million Coatings Expansion

The Coatings, Adhesives & Specialties Business Unit of Bayer MaterialScience has earmarked nearly $50 million to expand production of waterborne dispersions. Such dispersions, including radiation-cured products, are used in compounding industrial coatings for applications in painting of items ranging from wood to mass-transit vehicles. They are also used in adhesives, including those for shoe soles and film-laminated furniture surfaces.

Joachim Wolff, head of the CAS business unit and member of the executive committee of Bayer MaterialScience, says, "We want to sustainably strengthen our business" by focusing on what he calls innovative, practical, and environment-compatible technologies.

In the second half of this year, the company will bring onstream a new production plant for polyurethane dispersions, with an annual capacity of 20,000 metric tons, in Shanghai, China. Bayer will then have urethane dispersions plants in each of the world???s major industrial regions, including in Germany and in New Martinsville, W.Va.

Bayer also plans to produce acrylic dispersions at its El Prat site in Spain after a capacity increase there.

Besides urethane and acrylic dispersions, the business unit also produces polyester and hybrid urethane-acrylic dispersions.