The world's largest chemical maker last week marked the end of an 18-month project to bolster production capacity at its catalysts plant in Huntsville, Ala.
BASF announced that the renovation added 10 employees to the complex's roughly 500-person workforce and that the expanded capacity would meet the region's growing need for both auto parts and technology.
The Huntsville facility produces catalytic converters for the auto sector, and BASF officials also used Thursday's ceremony to tout the unprecedented 400 millionth converter produced at the plant since 1974.
"Nobody else has this number," Dirk Demuth, senior vice president of the German chemical giant's catalysts division, told AL.com.
BASF pioneered the catalytic converter in the early 1970s and estimated that the device helped eliminate more than 95 percent of harmful emissions from gasoline-engine exhaust since its inception.
The company also touted the Huntsville complex's certification as a Virtually Zero Waste Facility, which requires full transparency about the amount of waste "diverted from landfills and sent for incineration with energy recovery."
"Our employees ensure that our products are developed with integrity and the highest attention to detail, safety and environmental responsibility," Demuth said in a statement. "And we can proudly say that we are creating chemistry for a sustainable future.”