With B2Last®, BASF has developed an innovative bitumen additive that combines both asphalt performance and sustainability: Temperature-reduced paving with a high recycled asphalt content is made possible through the use of B2Last®, while guaranteeing consistent workability. This creates significantly lower bitumen and CO2 emissions compared to standard applications, while the asphalt resistance is also increased, thereby extending the life span of the road. Anne Holzum, chemical laboratory technician, checks the extent to which the Marshall test specimens have deformed as a result of loading in a cyclic compression test. In her right hand, Anne Holzum holds a test specimen with the bitumen additive B2last. In her left hand she holds a specimen without B2last.
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Our Research and Development

Who we are

Our Research and Development

Innovations are one of the essential factors in BASF’s success. The knowledge and skills of our highly qualified employees are our most valuable resources and the source of our innovative strength. In 2025, approximately 9,000 employees worldwide were working in research and development (R&D)

Our most recent topics and highlights

More and more electric cars are registered worldwide every year. At the same time, the raw materials for the batteries are limited and mining them is associated with negative environmental impact. BASF researchers at the Ludwigshafen site are therefore developing a new chemical process to recycle high-purity lithium from these batteries. This will also avoid waste and reduce the CO2 footprint compared to existing recycling processes.Chemical engineer Dr. Matthias Voges (left) and chemist Dr. Kerstin Schierle-Arndt (right) examine the lithium salts obtained from the new process.

Our research focus

We are a global leader in chemical industry R&D. Our researchers in labs around the globe are working on hundreds of research projects to meet the challenges of our customers and create chemistry for a sustainable future.

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Our global R&D network

Our research and development units explicitly address the industry-specific needs of our customers. Customer-focused activities are directly integrated into the operating divisions. Research activities that are relevant to several operating divisions are bundled in the cross-functional global division Group Research, which supports the R&D activities of the operating divisions. Corporate funding is used to finance Group Research projects that are of strategic relevance to the BASF Group and go beyond the industry-specific focus of the individual operating divisions. These include process innovations for our green transformation, the circular economy of our products, as well as digital tools. The unit is globally positioned with research centers in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Together with the research and development units in our operating divisions, Group Research forms the core of our global Research and Development Verbund.

Our global network of top universities, research institutes and companies gives us direct access to external scientific expertise, talented minds from various disciplines as well as new technologies. This strengthens our Research and Development Verbund and makes BASF an even more attractive partner and employer. In 2025, we collaborated with multiple companies as well as with 269 universities and research institutes.

Our academic research alliances bundle partnerships with several research groups in a region or with a specific research focus.

In our Safety Engineering Laboratory we deliver high-quality data and expert analysis to support the development and evaluation of robust safety concepts.

Our methods and enablers

BASF has started up a new supercomputer at its Ludwigshafen site. The new BASF supercomputer, named Quriosity like its predecessor, is the world’s largest supercomputer used in industrial chemical research. Significantly more complex modeling, virtual experiments and simulations are possible with its 3 petaflops computing power (1 petaflops equals one quadrillion floating point operations per second). Quriosity has more than 1,000 compute nodes and 3,000 terabytes of storage capacity. The photo shows the rear view of a compute node rack of BASF's new supercomputer.
Digitalization in R&D
We integrate digital technologies into everyday operations and make them an integral part of any R&D project workflow to boost effectiveness of research, increase efficiency and open up new innovation opportunities - and we are supported for example from the supercomputer Quriosity.
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