LANXESS CEO, Axel C. Heitmann, opened the new plant for membrane technology at the Bitterfeld site.

State Premier of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff is pleased about the new LANXESS plant for membrane technology. 200 new jobs are being created at the site.

Chairman of the LANXESS Board of Management Axel C. Heitmann and State Premier of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff today officially opened the state-of-the-art facility. The company is investing a total of around EUR 30 million in this project. The mayor of Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Petra Wust, took also part at the opening ceremony.

Chairman of the LANXESS Board of Management Axel C. Heitmann and State Premier of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff signed the first membrane element. (On the right side: Gerold Schade, General Manager of the IAB Ionenaustauscher GmbH, and Member of the Board of Management of LANXESS Rainier van Roessel)

Jean-Marc Vesselle, Head of the Business Unit ION, Gerold Schade, General Manager of the IAB Ionenaustauscher GmbH and State Premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, during the opening ceremony in Bitterfeld.

The building measuring around 4,000 square meters houses not only production and logistics facilities but also highly modern laboratories and offices.

In the future LANXESS is to produce Lewabrane membrane elements for water treatment in Bitterfeld. These filter out undesirable substances from water such as salts, pesticides, herbicides, viruses, bacteria and also minute particles.

A single membrane element consists of a package with more than 20 layers. This is assembled into a spiral wound element with a diameter of 20 centimeters and a length of one meter and then fixed.

The membranes are based on a three-layer composite structure that is manufactured in several production stages.

The membrane's active separating layer forms a wafer-thin polyamide film that separates the salt from water.

For quality assurance purposes each individual Lewabrane product is checked in an element tester.