SIBUR has completed the construction of a production facility for a special component for the release of synthetic rubbers

SIBUR has announced the completion of construction at the Voronezhsitezkauchuk site of the country's largest n-butylithium production facility, a key catalyst for the production of thermoplastic elastomers and synthetic rubbers. Commissioning work has begun, and the first tons of products are planned to be obtained in test mode by the end of the first quarter of 2026. The capacity of the new production facility is 350 tons per year.

The use of n-butylithium makes it possible to produce, among other things, butadiene-styrene (DSSK) rubbers, whose application in tire rubber compounds helps increase traction on wet roads and improve fuel economy.

Until 2022, n-butylithium was mainly imported from Europe, and now it is supplied from other regions. The launch of its own production, according to SIBUR, "will make it possible to neutralize the risks associated with the complexity of the logistics chain, the absence of licensors, and the availability of this special component in general".

"The project is based on a unique, waste-free technology developed by the specialists of the SIBUR Innovations research center, which is the most reliable, efficient, and safe of all known domestic and foreign n-butylithium production technologies due to the smaller number of production stages and equipment, while ensuring the production of a component with characteristics that are not inferior to the best foreign analogues," the company adds.

Experimental batches of n-butylithium produced at the new facility have already successfully passed tests at SIBUR's sites in Voronezh and Nizhnekamsk.