Plant expansions: hubergroup opens new production plant in Poland; Wacker to manufacture upstream products for building-protection agents and binders at its Nünchritz site

Printing ink specialist hubergroup Print Solutions has opened a production plant in the Wroclaw area in Poland, which delivers to customers throughout Europe. In the new buildings, hubergroup produces water-based varnishes as well as solvent-based inks for flexography and gravure printing and has dosing lines for offset inks including UV inks.

Additionally, the site comprises a laboratory with a customer and technical service department. More than 100 employees work at this site, which is hubergroup’s central service hub for Eastern Europe.

While hubergroup has been operating a mixing station in Poland since 1992, the international printing ink specialist has now expanded the Polish branch to a production site.

The newly built plant incorporates production facilities for the company’s water-based varnishes of the Acrylac series and the solvent-based inks of the Gecko series. In addition to that, the site accommodates dosing lines for the mixing of conventional offset and UV curing inks as well as for hubergroup’s Tinkredible series, which is designed for printing on metal.

The site in Wroclaw is hubergroup’s third production plant in Europe – next to plants in Celle, Germany, and Bolzano Vicentino, Italy.

Meanwhile in other news, Munich-based Wacker Group has started to build a liquid resins unit at its Nünchritz site. This unit will supply key upstream products for formulating silicone-based building-protection agents and binders for exterior paints and industrial coatings. At the moment, only Wacker’s Burghausen site produces these substances. Scheduled to go on stream at the end of 2022, Wacker says the new unit will close important material loops and so further increase the cost-effectiveness of its integrated production system. Capital spending amounts to some EUR30 million.

Wacker uses silanes and liquid resins to formulate several specialty silicone grades: building-protection agents and concrete protection creams contain these kinds of hydrophobic and hence water-repellent active ingredients, as do binders for exterior paints, corrosion-resistant protective coatings and heat-resistant powder paints. The company currently produces these additives at its liquid resins plant in Burghausen, where side-stream products resulting from the manufacture of silicones react with alcohol to become silanes and liquid resins.

Wacker says it now plans to manufacture these formulation ingredients in Nünchritz too. The foundations for a new liquid resins unit are now being laid in the northern part of the site. This unit will be able to process products obtained from the synthesis of methylchlorosilanes.

The investment benefits both the Nünchritz site and the integrated production system in Burghausen. Due to high demand for building protection agents and coatings the liquid resins plant in Burghausen has been running at full capacity.

In recent years, a healthy construction sector and demand for high quality industrial coatings have meant that more and more silicone-based construction materials and binders need to be supplied.“

The liquid resins plant is located on the site of a former tank farm not far from where a hybrid polymer facility is under construction. As already announced, this facility will produce silane-terminated hybrid polymer binders for high-performance adhesives starting late next year.

(PRA)

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