Solvay Switzerland
| Solvay (Schweiz) AG, formerly Schweizerische Sodafabrik AG
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1914 |
| Seat | Bad Zurzach , Switzerland |
| Number of employees | 25 (2014) |
| Branch | chemistry |
| Website | www.solvay.ch |
The Solvay (Switzerland) AG formerly Swiss Soda-Fabrik AG is a Swiss chemical company based in Bad Zurzach that the international Solvay Group is headquartered in Brussels heard.
history
After a series of unsuccessful boreholes for hard coal , the drilling contractor Cornelius Vögeli from Leuggern came across a layer of salt stone more than ten meters thick near Koblenz at a depth of around 150 meters on August 12, 1892 . Since Vögeli did not succeed in founding an exploitation company, the canton of Aargau turned to the Belgian company Solvay, the largest soda company in Europe, to recycle the salt deposits.
Due to the negotiations with Solvay, the canton of Aargau, as the owner of the salt shelf , granted the United Swiss Rhine Saltworks a concession to exploit the salt depots on September 21, 1912 . The condition was that a soda factory for the production of sodium carbonate (soda) had to be built in the Zurzach district and that the exploitation of salt and the production of at least 20,000 tons of soda had to begin annually by 1921 at the latest.
The Schweizerische Sodafabrik AG (popularly “Sodi”) was founded on December 4, 1914 in Olten with its headquarters in Zurzach and the United Swiss Rhine Saltworks as the owner. The border area between Zurzach and Rekingen was chosen for the factory location. The location met all the requirements for the construction of a soda factory: railway line for the transport of coal, nearby limestone quarry (Musital near Rekingen), salt deposits in the region with the possibility of extraction, ammonia coverage by the gas works in Basel and Zurich, enough electricity from the Rhine power stations and a settlement area from which the workforce could be recruited.
In March 1915 the factory construction could begin. In Zurzach, a borehole was driven to the salt store and the brine was transported from there through an underground pipe to the factory. In 1916 the first soda could be produced and delivered. Solid and liquid caustic soda was also manufactured as a further product. The first workers' houses were built in 1920.
After the First World War , the import ban was lifted and foreign competition reappeared. The soda factory had to pay much higher coal prices than its foreign competitors, which resulted in higher soda prices. In order to protect local industry, the Federal Council issued an ordinance in 1919 which provided for a Federal Council permit for the import of soda from abroad. Nevertheless, production had to be stopped for six months in 1920 and many workers had to be laid off.
The soda factory was taken over in 1921 by the Belgian soda company Solvay & Co. Brussels, who carried out a modernization. The number of employees increased from 340 in 1935 to 750 in 1950. From 1940 to 1950 the factory was expanded with three new buildings, in which chlorine , tri , per and other chemical products were manufactured. In 1944, with the completion of an electrolysis , the maximum capacity of chemical production was initiated with over 700 employees at that time.
In 1963 the production of ferric chloride began and in 1984 the electrolysis was modernized. In the following decades, individual production units had to be gradually dismantled for economic reasons. The production of soda was stopped in 1987 at the Zurzach plant. 197 employees were employed in 1990 and 125 in 2000. The salt works in Bad Zurzach were closed in 1995, which brought the Rhine salt works an additional order volume of 70,000 tons of salt annually. The vacant factory area was rented to third parties from 1999, which led to the establishment of the Solvay Industrial Park Zurzach , which is used today (2014) by around 30 companies with 180 employees. With the shutdown of the electrolysis in 2004, the production activities at the site were finally given up. In 2004 the number of employees had to be reduced from 135 to 34 within two years.
Today (2014) Solvay Switzerland sells various basic products (soda products, peroxides ) manufactured in France, Italy and Germany for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry and still employs 25 people.
literature
- Northwestern Swiss commercial and commercial address book , 1927.
- Christoph Herzig: Village Chronicle Rekingen. Rekingen 1995.
- Paul Zaugg: From the history of salt extraction in Zurzach . Zurzach 1989.
- Hans-Dietrich Altendorf: History of the patch Zurzach . Zurzach 2003.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Association of Aargau Museums and Collections: Schweizerische Sodafabrik AG / Solvay Schweiz AG
- ↑ Aargauer Zeitung of August 26, 2014: Checkered history: 100 years ago, the «Sodi» was founded
- ↑ Südkurier of August 29, 2014 by Angelo Zambelli: Schweizer Solvay AG celebrates its 100th anniversary
Coordinates: 47 ° 34 '36.1 " N , 8 ° 18' 51.3" E ; CH1903: 665 881 / 269 921