Description of Business and Basis of Presentation	6 Months Ended
Description of Business and Basis of Presentation	Jun. 30, 2020
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]
Description of Business and Basis of Presentation	Description of Business and Basis of Presentation Description of Business Ingevity Corporation ("Ingevity," "the Company," "we," "us," or "our") is a leading global manufacturer of specialty chemicals and high performance activated carbon materials. We provide innovative solutions to meet our customers’ unique and demanding requirements through proprietary formulated products. We report in two business segments, Performance Materials and Performance Chemicals. Our Performance Materials segment consists of our automotive technologies and process purification product lines. Performance Materials manufactures products in the form of powder, granular, extruded pellets, extruded honeycombs, and activated carbon sheets. Automotive technologies products are sold into gasoline vapor emission control applications within the automotive industry, while process purification products are sold into the food, water, beverage, and chemical purification industries. Our Performance Chemicals segment consists of our pavement technologies, oilfield technologies, industrial specialties, and engineered polymers product lines. Performance Chemicals manufactures products derived from crude tall oil ("CTO") and lignin extracted from the kraft paper making process as well as caprolactone monomers and derivatives derived from cyclohexanone and hydrogen peroxide. Performance Chemicals products serve as critical inputs used in a variety of high performance applications, including pavement preservation, pavement adhesion promotion, and warm mix paving (pavement technologies product line), oil well service additives, oil production, and downstream application chemicals (oilfield technologies product line), printing inks, adhesives, agrochemicals, lubricants, and industrial intermediates (industrial specialties product line), coatings, resins, elastomers, adhesives, and bio-plastics (engineered polymers product line). Basis of Presentation These unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements reflect the consolidated operations of the Company and have been prepared in accordance with United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") interim reporting requirements. Accordingly, the accompanying Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements do not include all disclosures required by accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP") for full financial statements and should be read in conjunction with the Annual Consolidated Financial Statements for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, collectively referred to as the “Annual Consolidated Financial Statements” included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 (the "2019 Annual Report"). In the opinion of management, the Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements contain all adjustments, which include only normal recurring adjustments, necessary to fairly state the condensed consolidated results for the interim periods presented. The consolidated results of operations for interim periods are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the full year. The preparation of the condensed consolidated financial statements requires management to make estimates and assumptions with respect to the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. Actual results could differ from these estimates. During the three and six months ended June 30, 2020 and subsequent to this date, there have been significant changes to the global economic situation and to public securities markets as a consequence of the novel strain of coronavirus ("COVID-19") pandemic. It is reasonably possible that this could cause changes to estimates as a result of the financial circumstances of the markets in which we operate, the price of our publicly traded equity in comparison to the carrying value, and the health of the global economy. Such changes to estimates could potentially result in impacts that would be material to the condensed consolidated financial statements. While there was not a material impact to our condensed consolidated financial statements as of and for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020, our future assessment of the magnitude and duration of COVID-19, as well as other factors, could result in material impacts to our consolidated financial statements in future reporting periods. Certain prior year amounts have been reclassified to conform with the current year's presentation.