Szazhalombatta, Hungary – Mol has opened a new $10m R&D centre for polyols at its Danube Refinery in Szazhalombatta, south of Budapest. It is named after Gyorgy Mosonyi, Mol’s late CEO.
It contains an experimental reactor system from Thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions. Most of the rest of the assets in the project came from Hungarian suppliers.
Studies on the physicochemical properties of polyols will be carried out at the centre. It will also run application experiments on polyurethane foams made from them. Collaborations with Hungarian universities and research institutions are being planned.
Mol and Thyssenkrupp have also entered into a joint R&D agreement. Thyssenkrupp will provide technology services and be the engineering procurement construction contractor. Mol will manufacture and sell various polyol products.
‘It is a state-of-the-art laboratory, equipped with all the necessary tools, instruments and most importantly it has great experts who will ensure that the R&D activities can serve the development of market-ready products, to be later produced by the polyol plant in Tiszaujvaros,’ said Gabriel Szabo, EVP of Mol Group Downstream. ‘As the most advanced polyol research centre in Central and Eastern Europe it has national significance, and we hope that the scientific results of it will be of high value internationally as well.’
The company is already investing €1.2 billion in the polyol complex in Tiszaujvaros, north-eastern Hungary, and the R&D centre will support this. It announced earlier in November that this complex is now 70% complete.
