The whole spectrum of pigment expertise

Specialty chemicals company LANXESS will be showcasing its extensive pigment palette for construction material coloring at the leading trade show bauma 2022 from October 24 to 30 in Munich. The company will be sharing a platform with its sales partner Harold Scholz, which this year celebrates its 120-year anniversary. The focus will be on product solutions for sustainable building and application expertise in long-lasting concrete coloring.

“Sustainable construction is a vital part of the journey toward an economical and environmentally friendly future, which is why environmental product declarations are increasingly being used in the construction industry and are among the key prerequisites for structures to be granted sustainability certification,” says Michael Ertl, head of the Inorganic Pigments (IPG) business unit at LANXESS. “By delivering greater transparency for the basic materials of the construction industry, we are enabling our customers to make much more accurate assessments of the environmental impact of their products,” says Ertl.

Verified environmental product declarations for economical and environmentally friendly construction

The EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) helps to ensure the necessary transparency. It describes construction materials, products, and components in terms of their environmental impact in accordance with the international standard ISO 14025 and European standard EN 15804 for construction products and services of all kinds. As the first manufacturer of synthetic iron-oxide pigments, LANXESS offers audited environmental product declarations for selected product groups – verified in accordance with international standards by the Institut für Bauen und Umwelt e.V. (IBU), an association of building product manufacturers.

Collecting plus points for building certification

“When raw materials used in production have verified EPDs, they can be factored into the life-cycle assessment of the construction material and have a positive influence,” says Holger Wendt, head of the Construction market segment at IPG. “Furthermore, EPDs offer a solid foundation for comparing iron oxide products from differing raw material suppliers,” he says.

Comparing different products is a worthwhile endeavor because the manufacturing process for synthetic iron oxide pigments uses a great deal of energy. LANXESS has therefore systematically invested in improving the carbon footprint of its pigments over the past few decades by implementing sustainable production processes at its production sites.

High quality – and sustainable

With Bayferrox 303 T, LANXESS is offering a unique black pigment for coloring concrete roofing tiles. Compared with conventional black pigments, it reflects 20 percent more of the sun’s infrared radiation. A roofing tile manufactured with this product therefore absorbs less heat and has a surface temperature that is up to eight degrees Celsius cooler. This results in a lower temperature inside the building, which improves the indoor climate and reduces energy consumption for air conditioning.

LANXESS is the world’s largest manufacturer of iron oxides and one of the leading producers of inorganic pigments based on chrome oxides. To ensure that the pigment, which is used in complex formulations, is capable of fulfilling increasingly stringent requirements in state-of-the-art concrete technologies, the company offers a range of application support worldwide. “Our practice-oriented service comprises extensive analyses regarding the colorimetric and physical pigment characteristics as well as their influence on concrete-related and rheological characteristics in customer-specific applications,” says Wendt.

Detailed information about pigments for coloring building materials can be found at www.bayferrox.com.

LANXESS targets fully climate-neutral supply chain by 2050

LANXESS is aiming to make its upstream and downstream supply chains climate-neutral by 2050. This encompasses indirect emissions associated with purchased raw materials in particular, but also emissions associated with its logistics processes and end products. By 2030, scope 3 emissions are to be cut by 40 percent – so from 27,000 to 16,500 metric kilotons of CO₂ equivalents – compared with the reference year 2015. For direct emissions in production (scope 1) and energy sources (scope 2), LANXESS announced three years ago its intention to achieve climate-neutrality by 2040.

With this strategy toward climate neutrality along the entire supply chains, LANXESS aims to support customers who are increasingly looking for sustainable solutions.

Detailed information can be found at https://lanxess.com/en/Responsibility/Approach/Sustainability-Targets.