Specialty chemistry

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As a specialty chemicals , an area which is chemical industry referred. The term is not clearly defined, but it is usually understood to mean chemical products with the following properties:

  • The focus is on the effect, not the chemical composition
  • The products are manufactured for special applications, often even customer-specific
  • The share of the total costs is relatively low for the customer, but it plays an important role for his product
  • Relatively small volumes and therefore often discontinuous production processes

Typical specialty chemical products are various additives , such as flame retardants , light stabilizers and food additives . The specialty chemicals are classified either according to customer industry (food) or function (flame protection). Fine chemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients have a different business model (based on the purity of the substance), but are still often classified as specialty chemicals. The transition between basic chemistry and specialty chemistry is fluid and can also change over time.

Specialty chemicals companies spend a lot of time on research and development, as they can often only survive in the market if they constantly develop new and innovative products. The manufacturing costs are usually very high compared to the bulk chemicals produced . In return, however, very high prices can be achieved and the influence of raw material costs is less. Specialty chemical companies often carry out contract synthesis on behalf of other companies that do not have the specific know-how and production facilities themselves.

At the end of the 1990s, numerous specialty chemicals companies emerged as a result of the deconstruction of the chemical industry, important examples being Clariant (spin-off of the Sandoz chemicals division in 1995, takeover of the specialty chemicals business from Hoechst in 1997), Rhodia ( Rhône-Poulenc spin-off 1998), Ciba AG ( Novartis spin-off 1997), Cognis ( Henkel spin-off 1999), Lonza Group ( Alusuisse spin-off 1999). Many of these companies have now been taken over by diversified chemical companies such as BASF (Ciba, Cognis) or Solvay (Rhodia). Existing companies with a high share of specialty chemicals include Altana , Clariant, Evonik Industries and Merck KGaA .