Arkema (Colombes, France; www.arkema.com), through its subsidiary CECA, an adsorption and filtration specialist, announces a project to double production capacity for its specialty molecular sieves. This capacity extension, representing capital expenditure of some €60 million, will take place in France on the Honfleur site dedicated to molecular sieves, with startup scheduled for summer 2016.
The site is designed to produce adsorbents for aromatics separation in petrochemicals, in particular the latest generation ultra-high-performance CECA molecular sieves, Siliporite SPX 5003, which are already produced industrially and marketed throughout the world. Production is scheduled to come onstream in two phases, the first in summer 2016 and the second in early 2017.
“Boosting CECA’s production capacity for specialty molecular sieves will enable us to support the growth of the market, of the order of 6 to 7%, especially in Asia and the Middle East, and in particular to serve our petrochemicals customers targeting end-markets such as synthetic textiles and PET bottles” explains Marc-Antoine Mallet, CECA managing director.