LEAP Connection: BASF Tour
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
On October 3, 2023, members of the 2023 LEAP class visited one of BASF’s two facilities in Chattanooga Tennessee. The Lost Mound Drive facility is 52 years old and is located adjacent to the Tennessee River. This location is a bulk storage facility handling a combination of trucks, railcars and barges of raw materials and finished products. The Lost Mound facility produces roughly 360 tons per year of water-based Styrene-Butadiene polymer dispersions used in formulations for construction materials, adhesives, asphalt emulsions and many other applications.During our introductory meeting, Brittany Davis provided us with an overview of BASF’s commitments to their employees, their customers and to the environment. To prepare for the facility tour, we all donned our PPE and broke up into two groups. This was the largest facility tour ever at BASF Chattanooga. Brittany took one group and Abby took the other group. On our tour, we were exposed to the entire manufacturing process from the raw materials processing tanks to the finished product tanks. BASF uses butadiene and styrene to make their final product BUTONAL NS or NX at 35-36% solids in a 9-reactor continuous process. We also visited the QC laboratory and the process control center. At the conclusion of the plant tour, Arlis Kadrmas provided the group with a presentation on SBR latex, its applications, and the best practices in using BASF polymers. |  | Chattanooga is a very welcoming and beautiful city and with Nashville only an hour away, you could feel the unique culture in the air. The 2023 LEAP students enjoyed this educational tour which was made possible by the AEMA board as well as the awesome team at the BASF Chattanooga facility. We thank all those that made this opportunity a reality. | | LEAP Update provided by: Emmanuel Delgado, Shawn Bryam, & Brody Young. |
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