Covestro launches a new production line for Desmodur® 15 prepolymers at Barcelona, Spain

They are pleased about the start-up of the new production of Desmodur® 15 prepolymers (from left to right): Andrea Firenze, Head of Site Management in Tarragona and Managing Director of Covestro in Spain, Philip Bahke, Head of Operations, and Thomas Braig, Head of the Elastomers segment, Abdel Arhzaf, Head of the Vulkollan® business, and Fernando Peiron Samperiz, Head of the Barcelona site. © Covestro

Covestro launches the production of Desmodur® 15 prepolymers at its Spanish site of Barcelona. With this new production line, the company addresses the growing demand for its high-performance elastomers and can serve an ever wider range of very demanding applications.

"With this strategic investment, Covestro aims to further enlarge the capacity and improve the reliability of its global supply of Desmodur® 15 based products," says Philip Bahke, Head of Operations at Covestro Elastomers.

"On top of addressing our customers’ demand, Covestro's Barcelona site has been operating entirely on renewable energy since the beginning of 2022," says Sucheta Govil, Chief Commercial Officer at Covestro. "This approach is part of our ambition to reduce our environmental impact while offering our customers greater access to our solutions and specialties products."

"We are opening the new production unit for our Desmodur® 15 prepolymers in Barcelona in parallel to the ongoing expansion of our NDI capacities in the Asia-Pacific region with the Map Ta Phut plant in Thailand," explains Thomas Braig, Head of Covestro Elastomers. "This new production unit will help us to support our customers’ growth in the cast polyurethanes high-end applications segment." The abbreviation NDI stands for naphthylene diisocyanate.

"Thanks to this new production line, our Vulkollan® licensees, as Desmodur® 15 prepolymers processors, will be able to further develop their business," explains Abdel Arhzaf, Head of NDI-Vulkollan®. "Through these investments, we intend to support the demand for ultra-high-performance elastomers used for superior applications as e.g. in the material handling industry and also for a growing number of engineering applications."

Combining the highest mechanical characteristics with dynamic load-bearing capacity, elastomers based on Desmodur® 15 prepolymers are not only one of the most powerful cast polyurethanes in the market, they are also as easy to process as conventional prepolymers.