BASF has inaugurated its Research and Development Laboratory and Application Technology Center for Battery Materials in Amagasaki, Japan. The facility, located in the Amagasaki Research Incubation Center, is BASF's first combined battery materials research and development and application technology operation in Asia Pacific.

"The new Amagasaki Battery Materials Lab will enable us to extend our successful R&D network with research institutes and the battery manufacturing industry into Japan," says Peter Schuhmacher, president process research and chemical engineering, BASF. "The addition of Amagasaki to this global network demonstrates our ongoing commitment to advancing the battery materials industry."

The total investment for the new Amagasaki facility, which covers new offices and laboratories located on a 600 square meter site, is several million euros.

BASF is investing several hundred million euros in battery materials research, development, and manufacturing projects, between 2011 and 2016. To strengthen its global position in this field, BASF announced in October 2013 that it will invest €25 million in renovating and expanding its research and development facility in Beachwood, Ohio. As one of the battery industry's leading suppliers, BASF will have R&D facilities in all three markets—North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. BASF expects global sales from the battery materials business of at least €500 million by the year 2020.

In the battery materials segment, BASF currently operates six production plants and pilot production sites in Ludwigshafen, Germany; Elyria and Beachwood, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Troy, Michigan; and Suzhou, China; as well as six R&D sites in Ludwigshafen; Beachwood and Independence, Ohio; Rochester Hills, Michigan; Suzhou, China; and Amagasaki, Japan.