Innovate with us!

On December 10, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will award this year’s Nobel Prizes in Stockholm, Sweden. The prizes for chemistry this year are all about proteins, considered the building blocks of life. The discoveries by David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper hold enormous potential for BASF, where understanding protein structure has been fundamental for developing new products for decades.

BASF completes the certification program International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) PLUS at its production site in Lemförde, Germany to produce biomass-balanced thermoplastic polyurethanes. This allows BASF to expand its sustainable product portfolio and continue its commitment to supporting customers in achieving their sustainability goals.

For advanced metal replacement in structural parts, BASF is now offering a portfolio of polyamide (PA) and polyphthalamide (PPA) blends with better, more constant mechanical properties than PA66. Ultramid^® T7000 outperforms PA66 regarding stiffness and strength in dry state and especially in presence of humidity. The polyphthalamide portion leads to a lower water absorption, which gives components an excellent dimensional stability. Ultramid^® T7000 can be as easily injection-molded as PA66, giving parts a glossy and smooth surface finish. This unique combination of properties makes the PA/PPA blend a perfect metal replacement for structural parts which are exposed to moisture, e.g., automotive mirrors, air brake parts, valves but also furniture components.

The footwear specialist for ultrarunning and long-distance shoes, Mount to Coast, Hong Kong, China, and BASF, Ludwigshafen, Germany have entered into a strategic partnership to explore high-performance, sustainable solutions for runners. CircleCELL™, an innovative midsole, is the first footwear technology the collaboration has produced. Based on BASF’s new biopolymer ecoflex® BMB, the new midsole is 90% more durable while showing the same energy return as midsoles made of polyether block amide (PEBA), a material widely used for performance running shoes. Biomass-balanced ecoflex® supports Mount to Coast in increasing the use of renewable feedstocks in its unique process of foaming the CircleCELL™ midsole while preserving the characteristics performance shoes require, most importantly, durability.

Vulcan and BASF have signed a memorandum of understanding in the presence of Daniela Schmitt, Minister of Economic Affairs, Transport, Agriculture and Viniculture for Rhineland-Palatinate, to explore the use of geothermal energy at the chemical company’s Ludwigshafen site as part of a strategic partnership. The partners aim to jointly evaluate opportunities for harnessing natural heat from deep geothermal sources to supply BASF’s largest site with renewable energy capable of meeting base load power requirements in the future. The surrounding urban centers of Frankenthal and Ludwigshafen also stand to benefit from the sustainable heat and are participating in the necessary seismic surveys as a first step. In order to make optimal use of synergy effects from the project, Vulcan plans to build a lithium extraction plant for the production of green lithium.