Evonik Industries has started operation at its new production facility for Rohacell structural foam at the Darmstadt, Germany site. The work has started following a construction project costing approximately six million euros. The new facility will increase the polymerisation capacity at the site by 50%, says Evonik. Due to extensive automation of the polymerisation process, cycle times have reportedly dropped by almost half.
“The facility enables us to account for the increasing demand and growth strategy for Rohacell,” said Dr. Andreas Hoff, Head of Performance Foams and responsible for the Rohacell Business Segment. The polymerisation process has been largely automated with the use of robot technology. This has led to shorter cycle times and significantly increased capacity.
Stefan Plaß, Head of the Growth Line Advanced Technologies, said: “Rohacell is expanding into ever larger serial applications. Our customers expect highly efficient and economic production processes from us. Only in this way can we make lightweight construction with Rohacell attractive for large quantities and new applications. We’re making an important step in this direction with automating the polymerisation, but we are also planning further automations and optimisations in the production process.”
Rohacell is a structural foam based on polymethacrylimide, which is used in fibre-reinforced composite parts in lightweight applications. The key market segments are aerospace and lifestyle, as well as automotive engineering and wind energy.