Expansions: Arkema ups PVDF capacity in China by 20%; BASF inaugurates expanded dispersion production in South Africa

Chemical firm Arkema has announced a 20% expansion of production capacity at its Changshu Kynar PVDF manufacturing site in China scheduled to start up in 2028. This significant investment reflects the group’s strategy to increase its Kynar PVDF footprint at a pace and with capabilities that match the strong and accelerating demand across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

This additional capacity is designed to support the strong and sustained growth in demand for Kynar PVDF across all key markets, including lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage systems (ESS), high-performance coatings, chemical processing industries, semiconductor manufacturing, water filtration, and wire and cable.

The project is supported by Arkema’s robust global R&D ecosystem, which ensures the group’s innovation leadership in PVDF advanced applications and technologies, it adds.

This ecosystem includes the Changshu R&D centre in China, as well as R&D centres in France, Japan, South Korea and in the US. Together, these laboratories enable Arkema to collaborate closely with customers and accelerate development of high-performance solutions for the energy transition and advanced manufacturing industries.

Arkema is a global leader in PVDF production, with the Changshu platform as its largest manufacturing site worldwide.

The group also produces PVDF in Calvert City, Kentucky in the US, where a new capacity increase was announced last year and will start up in the second quarter of 2026, as well as in its Pierre-Benite site in France.

In other news, German firm BASF has expanded production capacity for dispersions at its site in Durban, South Africa, strengthening the company’s ability to supply customers with high-quality dispersions used in architectural coatings, construction materials and the paper industry.

In addition to the expanded capacity, BASF has established a modern application laboratory on-site. This new facility enhances technical service capabilities, enabling closer collaboration with customers and stronger support for formulation development.

The Durban site, which supplies customers across East, West and Southern Africa, is one of six dispersion production locations within BASF’s EMEA network. With manufacturing facilities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, BASF adds it ensures close local proximity to customers, reliable supply and responsiveness to local market needs. 

“Our investment in Durban underscores our strong commitment to the dynamic African region and our local customers. Together with the recent capacity expansion in Dilovasi, Türkiye, and the modernization of the Ludwigshafen plant, we are strengthening our position as a leading supplier of high-quality dispersions across EMEA enhancing our capability to support our customers’ growth and innovations” says Dr. Jörg Niebergall, Senior Vice President, Dispersions Europe.

“This expansion in Durban will increase our supply reliability and ensure excellent product quality,” adds Ruveshen Reddy, responsible for the Durban production site. “To achieve this, we modernized our production facilities and installed a cutting-edge reactor.”

This year, BASF celebrates 60 years in South Africa. The company remains the only multinational that operates a dedicated dispersions production facility in the country.

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