When the world's 20 most powerful heads of state met this year at the “Palais des Festivals” in Cannes on November 3 and 4, they arrived to a “red carpet” with a rich red color, thanks to Bayferrox 230 A iron oxide pigments from LANXESS. For the G20 Summit, the city of Cannes had renewed the red asphalt on walkways and in the squares around the congress center. “Manufactured using the Laux process, our pigment was the product of choice because it is custom-made for coloring asphalt. Apart from heat resistance and color strength, its advantages include high, long-term color stability that is impervious to weather and UV radiation,” explains Thomas Pfeiffer, head of the Europe, Middle East & Africa region (EMEA) for LANXESS' Inorganic Pigments Business Unit.

A total of 9,400 square meters of road surface are being paved with an asphalt mixture colored with 30 metric tons of the powdered Bayferrox pigment. The old asphalt is being removed and recycled. Road work up to now was carried out on two consecutive nights by SACER construction. The surfacing was supplied by the COLAS Midi Méditerranée de Boulouris asphalt mixing plant in Aix-en-Provence. Both companies are subsidiaries of the Bouygues Group headquartered in Paris.

Excellent pigment quality thanks to the Laux process
LANXESS is the only manufacturer worldwide to use the Laux process, which kicked off the success story of iron oxide pigments 85 years ago at the Uerdingen, Germany, plant. “We have invested regularly in the process and optimized it with innovations to the point where it is now considered the state-of-the-art for producing iron oxide pigments compared to other synthesis methods in commercial use. It is responsible above all for the outstanding quality properties of the black and red tones,” says Jörg Hellwig, head of the LANXESS Inorganic Pigments Business Unit. The method even has ecological advantages. For example, the heat from the chemical reaction is used to generate steam and hot water for subsequent process steps. The result is a process with unsurpassed energy efficiency.