Swiss-based chemical maker Clariant has doubled its annual production capacity for water-based pigment preparations in Mexico with the inauguration of its latest plant in Santa Clara.
The new site, which started production during the second quarter of this year, is designed to enhance Clariant’s ability to serve customers throughout North and Latin America.
Pigment preparations are aqueous dispersions based on pigments. Compared to powder pigments, pigment preparations can provide faster and more cost-efficient production, and enhanced dispersibility. In addition, they can provide more flexibility through the possibility of tailor-made solutions.
The capacity increase for water-based pigment preparations will enable Clariant to improve its support for the regions’ current and emerging market segments including decorative coatings, non-impact and flexo printing, industrial coatings, and specialties like home care, personal care and stationery.
To complement this capacity increase, Clariant is also scheduled to start-up a new plant for solvent-based pigment preparations at the same site in the second quarter of 2016. This will produce high milling demand products for the U.S. specialties market.
“The new production plant in Santa Clara further improves access to growth markets in North, Central and South America,” said Michael Grosskopf, head of Clariant’s pigments business unit. “The new lines for water-based and solvent-based pigment preparations represent an important next step to extend the value we can create for our customers based on our strong formulation and dispersing know-how for many applications, our globally active technical service and vast production network. The strategic location in Mexico allows us to better tailor our offering to specific customer and application needs.”
