Thierry Le Hénaff, chairman and chief executive officer of Arkema (Colombes, France; www.arkema.com), inaugurated the company’s new specialty molecular sieve capacity at the Honfleur plant. This new plant will enable the group to support its customers’ growth in the refining and petrochemicals markets, in particular in Asia and the Middle East. This investment of some €60 million supports the development of the High Performance Materials segment.
Arkema is the world’s second largest producer of molecular sieves. These products are used for their adsorption and dehydration properties, primarily in industrial gases and in some petrochemical plants, as well as in health (medical oxygen), construction, and pharmaceutical packaging applications.
The inauguration on the Honfleur site in France marks the official launch of the doubling of capacity for Arkema’s specialty molecular sieves dedicated to aromatics separation in petrochemicals, in particular xylene separation.
The new facility will enable Arkema to support its customers’ growth in the refining and petrochemicals markets, in particular in Asia and the Middle East, supplying the synthetic textile and PET bottle end-markets.
This new unit demonstrates Arkema’s expertise in specialty molecular sieves, while consolidating the IFPEN (IFP Energies nouvelles) / Axens / Arkema cluster of excellence in France for the supply of innovative technologies and solutions.
Representing an investment of some €60 million, this capacity extension includes two ultra-high-performance molecular sieve plants producing in particular the latest generation Siliporite SPX 5003. The plants came onstream in line with the planned timetable.