Our SCS business provides solutions for composite materials and processing additives for technically demanding industries, like electronics, transportation and aerospace. We also provide performance intermediates & chemicals for many industrial applications, such as agro intermediates, food & feed ingredients, cosmetics, non-current good manufacturing practices (non-cGMP) intermediates, and custom development & manufacturing.
Specialty Chemical Services Overview
>1,000
Customers Worldwide
>200
Offerings
>1,000
Custom Solutions (realized over the last 45 years)
Performance Chemicals & Intermediates
We are a partner of choice for our customers, ensuring security of supply with the highest quality in specialty chemicals. We are committed to the highest environmental, health and safety standards in our two state-of-the-art sites in Visp (CH) and Nansha (CN). Our cracker in Visp is the backbone of a comprehensive, fully backward integrated chemical network. Originating from this enabling technology, we offer a variety of performance chemicals based on special technologies like Hydrocyanic Acid- (HCN), Acetylene-, Ethylene- and Ketene/Diketene-chemistry.
We are also the leading manufacturer of vitamin B3. Our dedicated plants in Visp and in Nansha produce Niacin (nicotinic acid) and Niacinamide. As the leading supplier in the global feed and food industry, we are committed to providing nutritional ingredients of unsurpassed quality.
Composites
We are a leading supplier of specialized resins to the composite and high performance materials industry. We are also a leading supplier of Primaset® thermoset resins. In addition, we offer the Lonzacure® range of special curing agents for high performance materials such as Epoxy, Polymide, Polyurea and Polyurethane. Our composite thermoset resin systems are used in modern consumer electronics to help enhance performance, as well as in the production of lightweight, reliable structural and interior elements for passenger aircraft.
Custom Development & Manufacturing
Our Custom Development and Manufacturing Business has a strong footprint in the realization of modern plant protection products. Increasingly, we also use our extensive process development expertise to serve our other markets, namely Home & Personal Care, Hygiene, Food Additives and Supplements. In particular, the food markets benefit from our biotechnical custom development and manufacturing capabilities at our cutting edge fermentation plant in Kouřim (CZ). Our services also include full life-cycle management for customers’ products.
Our products and services, offered to the agricultural markets derive from our strong focus on customer needs with a high level of expertise in chemical and biological technology. We support our customers in the production of modern herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, including biologically derived products, such as biopesticides. We can also offer full life-cycle management for customers’ products.
Highlights and Initiatives 2019
The SCS business was negatively impacted by ongoing geopolitical tensions, raw material supply challenges and unfavorable cyclical end-markets. The weak market demand for consumer electronics has been magnified by the US-China trade dispute, impacting the composites business in 2019. Custom manufacturing closed ahead of its 2018 performance level. Competitive pressure from China and supply chain challenges resulted in lower volumes of industrial intermediates. Demand for agrochemical ingredients was down, and the vitamin B3 business was impacted by lower volumes due to the African Swine Fever in Asia and low prices at the beginning of the year.
Performance Chemicals & Intermediates
In response to the growing demand for non-current good manufacturing practice (non-cGMP) intermediates for pharma, agro intermediates and food & feed applications, we invested in a capacity expansion in our Visp (CH) site to produce pharma and other intermediates.
Custom Development & Manufacturing
Based on our heritage and exceptional track record of more than 1,000 customized solutions for various markets, we launched the YOU initiative in 2019, to place our customer firmly at the center of our business (For more information, please go to our LinkedIn account). With our ability to offer chemical and biotechnological manufacturing services, building on a long legacy of technical excellence and process development expertise, we enable our customers to take their innovation to their markets in a rapid and reliable manner.
Our recent expansion into new markets shows early signs of success. For example the China Blue Sky initiatives – from the Ministry of Environmental Protection for The People’s Republic of China – revealed the need for a reliable, rapid supplier of key raw materials and solutions. We have the right technologies to solve customers’ challenges as they deal with supply problems caused by the changes in Chinese industry and sustainability requirements. With our cracker in Visp (CH), we are backward integrated into raw chemicals to solve customer supply issues.