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Lanxess to expand production capacity for membrane elements at Bitterfeld, Germany site

| By Mary Bailey

Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com) has announced plans for a capacity expansion for the production of membrane elements. The Lewabrane product range comprises membrane elements for brackish water and seawater treatment that boast a long service life, a good permeate yield, effective salt rejection and low energy requirements. “Currently, several thousand of our elements are being used in more than two dozen countries around the world,” explains Alexander Scheffler, Director Membrane Business in the LPT business unit.

“Our production facilities for membrane elements in Bitterfeld, Germany, are reaching the limit of their capacity. That is why we are planning a significant expansion of our capacity in the course of next year to meet rising demand. Thanks to the experiences we have gathered in a great variety of applications in recent years, we shall become an even more attractive supplier for major customers too,” adds Scheffler.

Lanxess can look back on more than 75 years of experience in ion exchange resins with its extensive Lewatit range. All signs point to continued growth in this market too. Demand for weakly acidic cation exchange resins and acrylic anion exchange resins is growing at a rate of three to five percent each year. “Having built up capacities for acrylic anion exchange resins in Jhagadia in India in 2010, we increased the production capacity for weakly acidic cation exchange resins in Leverkusen by around a third in 2014,” says Vesselle. The high capacity utilization both of the new production lines and of the newly constructed filling unit in Leverkusen already demonstrates how closely aligned to market and customer requirements these investments were.