Plants: Covestro modernises Dormagen TDI plant; Mitsui Chemicals establishes coating centre in India

German materials firm Covestro says it has successfully completed the modernisation of its TDI (Toluene Diisocyanate) plant in Dormagen, Germany, which consumes 80% less energy than conventional processes, achieving a CO2 reduction of 22,000 tonnes/year. Covestro operates Europe's largest TDI plant, with a production capacity of 300,000 tonnes/year.

The reduction is made possible by a new reactor weighing over 150 tonnes and almost 20 m high, which uses the generated reaction energy for steam production. In total, the project installed over 3.5 km of new pipelines, around 14 km of cables, and hundreds of new equipment, valves, and monitoring instruments in the plant.

The company targets a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions from energy use per tonne of product by 2030 compared to 2020, underlining the central importance of energy efficiency as a lever for achieving operational climate neutrality by 2035.

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) has supported this modernisation through its federal funding program for energy and resource efficiency.

In other news, Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals says that its subsidiary Mitsui Chemicals India has established a coatings technical centre (CTC) in Gurugram, in the Indian state of Haryana, to improve technical support capabilities in the company’s coatings and engineering materials business.

Against the backdrop of mounting concern about environmental problems and the tightening of government regulations, India is seeing growing demand for sustainable packaging. Of particular note are moves to reduce the use of disposable plastic and switch to alternative materials.

Thus, the firm says the centre has been established to serve as a base for providing technical support, with plans to swiftly and precisely meet the needs of customers in the Indian market.

The facility is equipped with coating machines capable of handling all kinds of coating methods – including gravure, reverse gravure and air knife – along with analysers. This will allow customers’ issues to be quickly resolved in India rather than having to send products to Japan for testing and evaluation, as had been the case previously.

In addition, the centre will help support customers in developing products by undertaking R&D focused on the latest coating technologies, as well as by providing technical guidance to customers on getting the most out of Mitsui Chemicals’ products.

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