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Chemistry

The paint on the Eiffel tower in Paris, the facade of the Soccer City World Cup stadium in Johannesburg, the royal asphalt in front of London’s Buckingham Palace – they all have one thing in common: colour pigments from the Niederrhein region.

The specialty chemicals Group Lanxess operates the world’s largest production factory for colour pigments in the CHEMPARK Krefeld-Uerdingen. From here the company supplies the building materials and plastics industries as well as paints and lacquers manufacturers on all continents.

Lanxess is one of the major global manufacturers of chemical products based in the Niederrhein region – just like Altana, Bayer, Evonik and Solvay. Other corporations such as Esco Salt, Johnson Matthey and KLK Oleo also run production sites here.

These companies are one of the reasons why North Rhine-Westphalia maintains its leading position as the most important region for the chemicals industry in Germany. In terms of revenue, North Rhine-Westphalia is the fifth most important chemicals region in the EU and the 13th worldwide.

The chemistry is right for chemistry in the Niederrhein region. 13,500 people produce chemical products here. They are accompanied by thousands more jobs in the chemicals industry’s network – at suppliers, special services providers, processors and wholesalers.

The CHEMPARKS Krefeld-Uerdingen and Dormagen, which are situated right on the Rhine, are examples of successful networks. The supply and production chains of the companies based there are perfectly interweaved right up to the product level.

Further down the Rhine lies Solvay Rheinberg, the third chemicals-based industrial park in the Niederrhein region. It also reaps the benefits of locating your business in the Niederrhein region: the Rhine River is in front of its gates, as a waterway with connections to seaports for transporting raw materials and finished products.

Another important element of the industry network in the Niederrhein region is the training of skilled staff and management staff. At the Krefeld faculty of Chemical Engineering of the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, students are getting to know the basics of technical chemistry, textile chemistry and lacquer technology.

The export rate of the industry is already almost 70 percent. The strategy behind this success is focusing primarily on research-intensive and higher-quality specialized chemicals and plastics. This strategy is also adopted by small and medium-sized businesses. Rhenus Lub, for example: the family businessdevelops and produces special lubricants that meet the highest standards in safety and profitability. The sales market of the specialists extends as far as the Chilean copper mines.

Another example is Lackwerke Peters: the family business has specialized in the development and manufacture of high-tech lacquers for electronics. The products are used in automotive electronics, aerospace engineering, industrial electronics, medical technology, and photovoltaic applications.