BASF establishes metal surface treatment global competence center in Asia Pacific

• Dedicated facility to help enhance collaboration with customers and provide advanced technical service
• New competence center to speed up innovations with clear focus on sustainable additives

Shanghai, China − June 16, 2020 − BASF today inaugurated its application center for metal surface treatment (MST), located in the Innovation Campus Shanghai, China. This first-of-its-kind lab and competence center for BASF’s Care Chemicals division in Asia will enable quicker, collaborative innovation with customers and deliver sustainable additives to the MST industry. Innovation pipelines in applications for new and existing products have been defined for the lab, with an imperative on more environmentally friendly products and emerging technologies.

“Though MST is a traditional industry, there is still a lot of room for innovation, especially when it comes to finding solutions in response to regulatory changes as well as technology upgrades that the industry has seen in the recent years,” said Dr. Zhen Yu QIAN, Head of Global Development & Innovation, Home Care, I&I and Industrial Formulators Asia Pacific at BASF. “One example is the recent launch of Lutron^® POP, a sustainable additive, to replace chrome acid in plastic pretreatment, which will help our customers move to more environmentally friendly surface treatment, beyond chromium (VI).” 

The new application center is located in BASF’s Innovation Campus Shanghai, the largest R&D site of BASF in Asia Pacific. With this lab, BASF aims to offer advanced and more agile technical service to customers on existing products, along with innovations and applications being planned.

“Considering that more than half of the world’s metal plating industry is based in Asia, this new global competence center is an important, strategic step for us. We plan to drive more new applications and innovation projects in the future from Asia. We are also convinced that with our wide range of specialty chemicals offerings and professional R&D platform we can contribute substantially to the electrical and electronics (E&E) value chain,” said Dr. Jianwen MAO, Vice President, Home Care, I&I and Industrial Formulators Asia Pacific at BASF.

Metal surface treatment is essential in many industries and is a time-tested process in major downstream sectors including automotive, electrical and electronics and steel production. It offers properties like corrosion protection, hardness improvement, and glossy texture.

About the Care Chemicals division at BASF

The BASF division Care Chemicals offers a broad range of ingredients for personal care, home care, industrial & institutional cleaning, and technical applications. We are a leading global supplier for the cosmetics industry as well as the detergent and cleaner industry, and support our customers with innovative and sustainable products, solutions and concepts. The division’s high-performance product portfolio includes surfactants, emulsifiers, polymers, emollients, chelating agents, cosmetic active ingredients and UV filters. We have production and development sites in all regions and are expanding our presence in emerging markets. Further information is available online at www.care-chemicals.basf.com.

About BASF

At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. More than 117,000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of €59 billion in 2019. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the U.S. Further information at www.basf.com.