About Intermediates

BASF's Intermediates division manufactures more than 600 products that are sold to around 3,000 customers worldwide. These customers typically purchase the division's products as precursors for their higher-value chemicals.

Among other applications, intermediates are used as starting materials for detergents, plastics, textile fibers, coatings, pharmaceuticals and crop protectants. Innovative BASF intermediates help to improve the properties of the final product and the efficiency of production processes.

The most important of the division's product lines are amines, diols, polyalcohols and acids.

• Amines
  BASF is among the world's top three producers of amines, which are principally used to make detergents and cleaning products, process chemicals and agricultural products as well as pharmaceuticals. Key products include ethanolamines, ethyleneamines, alkylamines, alkylalkanolamines and several specialty and aromatic amines.
  
  
• Diols and polyalcohols
  BASF produces and sells diols and polyalcohols around the globe. The company is the world's largest manufacturer of 1,4-butanediol (BDO), which is a chemical building block for products such as polyesters and polyurethanes. The BDO derivatives tetrahydrofuran, PolyTHF®, gamma-butyrolactone and N-methylpyrrolidone are used to produce products ranging from fibers to paints, for example. Polyalcohols such as 1,6-hexanediol and neopentyl glycol are used as raw materials for a wide range of coatings.
  
  
• Acids
  The acids business unit sells commodities and specialty products around the world. Carboxylic acids such as formic and propionic acid can be used to manufacture preservatives for the feed and food industries, or as auxiliaries in textile and leather applications. Specialty intermediates comprise derivatives of phosgene like acid chlorides and chloroformates, glyoxal and its derivatives, glutaraldehyde and various other chemicals such as formamide and triphenylphosphine. These chemicals are often used in the manufacture of paper, polymers, textiles and leather products.
  
  

Sites

The Intermediates division operates 14 BASF-owned production facilities in all major economic regions. A sophisticated logistics system ensures that our customers around the globe receive BASF products on time and in the preferred quality. The division’s sites are located in Ludwigshafen and Schwarzheide (both Germany), Antwerp (Belgium), Freeport, Geismar, Louisiana (USA), Camaçari (Brazil), Chiba (Japan), Yeosu (Korea), Nanjing, Jilin, Caojing, Pudong (China) and Kuantan (Malaysia).

The main applications for BASF Intermediates

Intermediates supplied by BASF are used in about 30 different industries, mainly to make plastics, textile fibers, coatings, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. The main applications for amines are agrochemicals, active pharmaceutical ingredients and process chemicals. Acids are also used for agrochemicals, to manufacture higher-value chemicals and in leather processing. Diols are required in the production of plastics and elastic fibers, polyalcohols for solvent-free powder coatings, and specialty plastics.

Our Customers

The Intermediates division’s customers are active everywhere in the world, mainly in the plastics, construction, coatings, textile fibers, agrochemical, pharmaceutical and general chemical industries.

Our strengths

We are strongly positioned in Europe, Asia and NAFTA with production sites and sales infrastructures in all these regions. We offer the world’s largest portfolio of intermediates and we are technology leaders in our key product lines. Our customers benefit from our operational excellence in commodity businesses and from our commitment to industry-focused specialty businesses. We are committed to innovation and we do business as a reliable, highly flexible partner, offering products from the laboratory scale to production by the ton. Our customers benefit from BASF’s integrated Verbund system that gives us access to a pool of expertise, production and energy resources.