In an attempt to strength its position in Asia-Pacific, Kemira, a provider of chemical solutions for water intensive industries, has increased its production capacity of water treatment chemicals in Yanzhou, China.
The company has started to build a new sodium hypochlorite production unit at Yanzhou, and the site is expected to commence commercial production in January next year. Sodium hyochlorite is a disinfectant that is used in the water treatment processes in the pulp and paper industry, and process industry as well as in municipal water treatment. The product is also a key component in paper industry deposit control technologies, securing paper and board machine runnability.
Kemira has also planned to finalised the pre-engineering phase for an investment to increase the production of polyaluminum chloride (PAC) at Yanzhou. PAC is used as a coagulant in raw water and wastewater treatment processes and additionally as fixative in the paper and board industry. The new unit is expected to be operational in March 2022.
These investments enable Kemira to serve the increasing water treatment demand in the growing Asia-Pacific markets for both Kemira’s business segments – pulp and paper, and industry and water.
Both PAC and sodium hypochlorite are manufactured in the new production units utilising industrial side streams and recycled by-products as key raw materials. The production of PAC uses hydrochloric acid that is an organic by-product of Kemira’s AKD wax production located in the same chemical park in Yanzhou. The key raw material for sodium hypochlorite, caustic soda, comes from the side stream of a customer’s manufacturing process.
