08.08.12
Whether in toothpaste, chewing gum or candies, the minty taste of the world's most-sold flavor ingredient, menthol, can be found in countless everyday products. But menthol owes its popularity not only to its fresh taste, but also to its cooling effect on the skin and mucous membranes. This is why it is often used for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics like cooling ointments, inhalations, deodorants and shower gels.
The worldwide demand of 25,000 to 30,000 metric tons per year already exceeds the available supply – and is constantly growing because more and more new products contain menthol. Therefore, BASF put the world's largest production plant for nature-identical menthol into operation this summer. It has also now developed a new process based on the aroma chemical citral, which is already produced in BASF's Verbund system.
"One of the key steps in the new process is called asymmetric hydrogenation," explained BASF research scientist Dr. Rocco Paciello. "For this purpose we have developed a special, highly efficient catalyst system which ensures that mainly just a certain enantiomer is synthesized from the citral."