Expansion Driven by Growing Interest in Energy Transition Technologies in the Biogas, Aerospace and Marine Industries

Air Products (NYSE:APD), the global leader in the production of gas separation and purification membranes, today announced it will invest more than $70 million to significantly expand its manufacturing and logistics center in Maryland Heights, near St. Louis, Missouri.

The investment, which is Air Products Membrane Solutions’ largest ever, is driven by growing product demand in biogas and hydrogen recovery applications, as well as customer needs for the use of nitrogen for the aerospace industry and cleaner fuels for the marine industry.

“We are excited to announce this investment to significantly expand the footprint and production capacity of our St. Louis manufacturing and logistics center. This expansion shows our commitment to continue to be a leader in the energy transition by creating innovative products for a safer, cleaner and more productive world,” said Dr. Erin Sorensen, general manager, Air Products Membrane Solutions. “This expansion also highlights our ongoing commitment to the local community and our talented and motivated employees in the region. We are proud to continue to grow and expand our global manufacturing capabilities in the United States in St. Louis.”

The new manufacturing facility is expected to be in production by the end of 2025 and include the addition of 30 new positions. Currently, about 170 employees work at the St. Louis facility. This expansion follows a previous $10 million investment made in 2023 to increase production capacity at the current facility.

“We’re pleased to see yet another leading and innovative company like Air Products expanding its presence in the St. Louis region,” said Missouri Governor Mike Parson. “The growth of employers like Air Products highlights the value of our state’s ideal business climate, strong infrastructure, and skilled workforce. We look forward to Air Products’ continued success in Maryland Heights as it invests and creates jobs in the area.”

Missouri Department of Economic Development Director Michelle Hataway said, “Air Products’ expansion is the latest example of the incredible business growth that’s helping Missourians prosper in St. Louis. We appreciate this company’s commitment to the community as it creates new opportunities and helps drive economic growth in the region.”

Air Products Membrane Solutions specializes in the development of hollow fiber membrane separators and systems for onsite gas generation. Air Products designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets a full portfolio of PRISM® Membrane Separators, Marine Systems, and Engineered-to-Order Systems to protect lives and goods at sea, on land, and in the air. Air Products’ systems are also designed to create more sustainable energy sources and raise productivity across a variety of industries and applications.

Air Products Membrane Solutions’ key offerings include:

• PRISM® Membrane Separators – Consist of thousands of polymeric hollow fibers that act as a molecular filter to separate gases into individual elements, including methane, nitrogen or hydrogen. The membrane separators are offered to value-added packagers as an original equipment manufacturer component inside specialized systems. Industries served include aerospace, offshore drilling, food and beverage, transportation, and defense.
• Marine Systems – Air Products is the world’s most experienced and largest supplier of marine-based membrane systems serving several market segments including dual-fuel systems, chemical tankers, oil platforms and liquefied natural gas carriers. More than 2,000 ships worldwide currently use separation systems based on Air Products’ membrane technology.
• Engineered-to-Order-Systems – Large industrial membrane systems for nitrogen generation and process gas applications, which are fully customized to customer specifications serving the oil and gas industry, ammonia plants, chemical manufacturing facilities, and renewable diesel production.
• Global Service and Support – Provides maintenance and optimization of membrane systems, offering health checks, replacement parts, remote monitoring, and other services to keep membranes operating at peak performance.

For more information on Air Products Membrane Solutions, visit membranesolutions.com.

Air Products (NYSE:APD), the global leader in the production of gas separation and purification membranes, today announced a project to significantly increase hollow fiber membrane production at its St. Louis, Missouri facility.

“We’re excited to announce this investment in our production facility that will deliver substantial capacity and efficiency enhancements to support the growing membrane markets. This project will create additional highly-skilled job opportunities for the market as well as enable us to better support our customers in this dynamic supply chain environment,” said Nick Sillitto, Air Products’ Site Manager of the St. Louis facility.  “Membrane Solutions has been a pioneer and leader in this space for over 40 years. With this investment, Membrane Solutions is well positioned to support its existing applications as well as emerging technologies, for the next 40 years.”

The production improvement project at the facility is driven by strong customer demand in the biogas and hydrogen recovery applications, as well as customer needs for the use of nitrogen for the aerospace industry and dehydration products.

This capacity improvement effort will impact product lines such as the PRISM® GreenDry membrane dryer and the PRISM® GreenSep membrane separator, which provide customers in the biogas industry with dehydration and upgrading solutions that add design flexibility to a customer’s biogas system. The project also increases the production of PRISM® N2Sep membranes, which are the foundation of Air Products’ recently announced PRISM® InertPro Membrane System, a new nitrogen generator for the energy and gas industry that is optimized with a flexible modular design to focus on efficiency and lower energy nitrogen generation.

Air Products Membrane Solutions specializes in the development of hollow fiber membrane separators and systems for onsite gas generation. Air Products designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets a full portfolio of PRISM® Membrane Separators, Marine Systems, and Engineered-to-Order Systems to protect lives and goods at sea, on land, and in the air. Air Products’ systems are also designed to create more sustainable energy sources and raise productivity across a variety of industries and applications.

Air Products Membrane Solutions’ key offerings include:

• PRISM® Membrane Separators – Consist of thousands of polymeric hollow fibers that act as a molecular filter to separate gases into individual elements, including methane, nitrogen or hydrogen. Offered to value-added packagers as an original equipment manufacturer component inside specialized systems. Industries served include aerospace, offshore drilling, food and beverage, transportation, and defense.

• Marine Systems – Air Products is the world’s most experienced and largest supplier of marine-based membrane systems serving several market segments including dual-fuel systems, chemical tankers, oil platforms and liquefied natural gas carriers. More than 1,800 ships worldwide currently use separation systems based on Air Products’ membrane technology.

• Engineered-to-Order-Systems – Large industrial membrane systems for nitrogen generation and process gas applications, which are fully customized to customer specifications serving the oil and gas industry, ammonia plants, chemical manufacturing facilities, and renewable diesel production.

• Global Service and Support – Provides maintenance and optimization of membrane systems, offering health checks, replacement parts, remote monitoring, and other services to keep membranes operating at peak performance.

For more information on Air Products Membrane Solutions visit airproducts.com/membranes.

About Air Products
Air Products (NYSE:APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 80 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets. The Company has two growth pillars driven by sustainability. Air Products’ base business provides essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, and food. The Company also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest industrial gas and carbon-capture projects, supplying world-scale clean hydrogen for global transportation, industrial markets, and the broader energy transition. Additionally, Air Products is the world leader in the supply of liquefied natural gas process technology and equipment, and globally -provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers.

The Company had fiscal 2022 sales of $12.7 billion from operations in over 50 countries and has a current market capitalization of about $65 billion. More than 21,000 passionate, talented and committed employees from diverse backgrounds are driven by Air Products’ higher purpose to create innovative solutions that benefit the environment, enhance sustainability and reimagine what’s possible to address the challenges facing customers, communities, and the world. For more information, visit visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Air Products Membrane Solutions Announces $10 Million Investment to Significantly Increase Membrane Production Capacity at its St. Louis Facility

Membrane Solutions hosts Women in Manufacturing Missouri Chapter kickoff event and plant tour.

The Women in Manufacturing (WiM) Association is a global trade association dedicated to providing year-round support to women with careers in the manufacturing industry. Air Products is a proud corporate sponsor of WiM. Recently, Air Products Membrane Solutions team hosted the kickoff session for the Missouri Chapter of WiM at their St. Louis manufacturing facility.

More than 40 women and men from the St. Louis area, who are involved with the manufacturing industry, participated in the Chapter’s launch event. Attendees ranged from CEOs and owners, to vice presidents, to operators from machining businesses, engineering firms, aerospace manufacturing, the food and beverage industry, and the chemicals industry.

During the event, attendees learned about WiM and its available programs. Erin Sorensen, general manager of Air Products Membrane Solutions and WiM Missouri Chapter board member (pictured), provided an overview of Air Products and our Membrane Solutions business and took participants on a tour of our membranes facility.

“This event aligns with Air Products’ core values of diversity and inclusion. We were able to share our culture and values with the WiM team and make connections locally to support our business needs,” said Erin Sorensen, GM Membrane Solutions. “We also will be leveraging our WiM membership to connect with local talent and build a sense of community for women involved in manufacturing.”

The new WiM Chapter plans to hold virtual and in-person events approximately every other month. If you are interested in participating, please visit the Missouri Chapter website for more information.

WiM has tremendous resources on their website for professional development, and offers several programs targeted at different career profiles (floor operators, mid-management and executive) to help develop people’s leadership skills. Through our involvement with organizations like WiM, we can develop ourselves and others and help shape the future of our industry.

Air Products PRISM Membranes employees recently participated in a Day of Caring philanthropy event with a local organization to benefit foster care homes.

Eight employees of the Prism Membranes manufacturing team volunteered their time to deconstruct an old shed and build a new shed in the backyard of a local foster home. The membranes group within Air Products is proud to support the local community and the spring weather made for a lovely day of outdoor work.

The Air Products Prism Membranes facility in Saint Charles, Missouri recently assisted in a K-9 police training session. While unoccupied, the building hosted dogs and trainers from 8 local municipalities as they conducted various intruder and drug sniffing drills. The group safely utilized the facility’s office and front yard areas for certain search-and-find drills with the dogs.

Police officers at the four hour event expressed their appreciation for utilizing a different training location to offer variety in the dogs’ training sessions. Similar K-9 trials often occur in schools or office buildings on weekends. The Air Products Prism Membranes team was happy to lend their facility for this community-benefitting arrangement.

To celebrate the upcoming holidays, the Air Products Prism Membranes employees in St. Louis Missouri donated gifts to 73 local children in need. Gifts were purchased based on the children’s wish-lists and included toys like dolls, legos, racecars, and jewelry making looms.

The celebration continued with a site-wide potluck luncheon where employees brought in their favorite dishes to share. A lighthearted trivia rivalry game followed the potluck lunch and generated big smiles.

The Air Products Prism Membranes Team celebrates their colleagues and community and wishes to extend the holiday greetings to you too!

It’s Photo Friday so take a quick look at our Prism Membrane manufacturing operations. In this photo, we are using a camera to enlarge and inspect hollow membrane fibers for quality control.

It’s “Photo Friday” and here is a snapshot of our new, maintenance free LED lights. We are focusing on efficiency and power reduction at our membrane manufacturing facility…and these new lights are a perfect upgrade!