New production facility for aromatic ring chlorination in Frankfurt-Höchst, Germany

Dr. Uwe Brunk, President of WeylChem Group of Companies (WCGC), announced the larger scale investment in a new production facility for aromatic ring chlorination to be built at the Group’s site in Frankfurt-Höchst. With this step, WCGC will also strengthen the existing side-chain chlorination technology and establish a sustainable production cycle. Customers will benefit from the increased capacity as well as high flexibility under European production standards. The start of production is planned for the first quarter of 2022.

WeylChem Höchst in Frankfurt, Germany, has many decades of experience in the field of side-chain chlorination. Building on that, the new production facility will strengthen the existing capabilities and expand them to aromatic ring chlorination for the speciality chemicals market, meeting the growing demand in Europe for local and resilient supply chains. By doing so, WeylChem will optimize the efficient use of resources towards a forward integration of its VP3 plant in the strive for a circular economy.

4-Chlorobenzotrichloride (p-TRI), a by-product of side-chain chlorination, can be refined to 2,3,4,5-Tetrachlorobenzoyl chloride (TCBC) in the new plant, and therefore will not need to be disposed of anymore. As all the other by-products are already being refined or sold, the side-chain chlorination will reduce the waste footprint significantly. This underlines the efforts of the Group towards increased sustainability.

Thereby, the WeylChem Group will also backward integrate and install its own proprietary supply chain to use these products in the HALEX plant at Allessa in Frankfurt-Fechenheim.

Furthermore, the implementation of the new production facility meets the market demand for flexible, continental European side-chain chlorination governed by European regulations.

This strategic step is advancing the repositioning of the Group. With the side-chain chlorination as a solid component of the Group`s Advanced Intermediates business, the new production facility enables WeylChem to exploit new markets in Custom Manufacturing and to bring its performance to the next level.