Covestro (Leverkusen, Germany), the former Bayer MaterialScience, is investing roughly EUR 20 million to expand its production capacity for polycarbonate films at the Dormagen site. The company has announced plans to construct a new co-extrusion plant for high-quality, multilayer flat films that is projected to come on stream in 2017. The expansion will lead to the creation of 15 new jobs at the Dormagen site.

“With this investment we are significantly expanding our films business,” said Daniel Meyer, head of the Coatings, Adhesives and Specialties Segment. “At the same time, we are expanding our range of tailored products, which offer added value along the entire value chain.”

Covestro offers a diverse range of polycarbonate and thermoplastic elastomer films for a wide variety of applications, as well as a range of high-quality specialty films. Development activities in Europe are managed by three competence centers, all located in Germany.

The center in Dormagen is specialized in polycarbonate flat films and offers production facilities, a technical center for film processing, a showroom and two research laboratories, which have been totally re-equipped. The other two competence centers located in Leverkusen and Bomlitz are dedicated to film coating and thermoplastic elastomer films, respectively.

The films manufactured in Dormagen are used in security cards, automotive interiors, medical devices and displays.

“With the new plant, we are orienting ourselves more than ever on market trends and the rising demand for high-quality flat films. For us it is a further developmental step for multilayer film structures, such as those used for counterfeit-proof identity cards,” declared Nina Schmarander, global head of Specialty Films at Covestro.