Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) shapes its hydrogen peroxide business more customer-oriented and reacts to the increased need of active oxygens. This also includes a more efficient and faster supply to the customer.
Because of its effective cleaning and bleaching properties, which are also environmentally benign, hydrogen peroxide is used for pulp and textile bleaching as well as many other applications. To ensure that it can meet the increasing demand for the product in the future, Evonik is currently working on an extensive program for realignment of the existing four production sites in Europe.
The expanded capacity for hydrogen peroxide will be commissioned in 2017. Implementation of the measures resulting from the realignment is expected to be complete by the middle of 2018.
In addition to the measures for expansion of production capacity, the specialty chemicals group is also investing in logistics. This includes a logistics center, which enables the expansion of the business with smaller packaging sizes. In this way, Evonik is reacting to the increasing demand for products which are distributed under the brand names Hyprox, Oxteril, Persynt and Clarmarin. “We are meeting the requirements of our customers,” says Michael Träxler, head of the Active Oxygens Business Line. “It is just as important to support the growth of our customers as it is to meet the growing requirements for services in the various industries.” Susanne Reinhart, head Active Oxygens EMEA adds: “Our customers use hydrogen peroxide in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors, in the processing of food packaging, and also in large quantities in the pulp and textile industries. We want to be able to react to the very different requirements of our customers and to work together with them to develop solution concepts for the future. With the realignment in Europe, we are now faster and more flexible and we are even closer to our customers.”
Evonik is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of hydrogen peroxide, with 13 production sites worldwide and an annual capacity of approx. 950,000 metric tons.