Evonik Industries has announced it is to build world-scale plants for producing isophorone and isophorone diamine in Shanghai. The Group is investing more than €100M (US$138.5M) in the plants, which are scheduled to go on-stream in the first quarter of 2014. Construction work on the multi-user site in Shanghai, will begin in early 2012.
Isophorone is used in applications such as paints and printing inks, while its derivative, isophorone diamine, is used as a hardener in epoxy-based formulations, eg for composite materials, such as those used in wind turbines.
Evonik expects to see strong growth in demand for raw materials used in the paint, coating and construction industries, for automotive applications and for high performance composite materials especially in Asia. The plants will be Evonik’s first for isophorone and isophorone diamine in Asia
