The Business Unit Catalysts is one of the world’s leading suppliers of catalysts. Catalysts initiate the acceleration, change or triggering of chemical reactions and processes. With catalysts, chemical processes are more efficient and less energy intensive. Clariant has developed numerous catalysts for various chemical and fuel-related processes – including applications for exhaust gas cleaning and the efficient use of alternative energies. These include EnviCat® and Zeolites.

The Business Unit Oil & Mining Services is one of the most important suppliers of additives and services for the oil and gas sector as well as the refining and mining industries. Oil & Mining Services supports customers on game-changing innovation solutions that ensures oil and mining companies alike can produce more efficiently, economically and sustainably.

For Oil Services the product range is broadly diversified with hydraulic fracturing being a focus for innovative chemical technologies that improve efficiency and have an excellent environmental profile.

The Business Unit Functional Minerals is a market leader in bentonite-based specialty products and solutions to improve product properties for various industries. These include, for example: bleaching earths or additives for foundries; additives for fabric care, ceramics and paper making; materials for tunneling and civil engineering; and protective packaging. The key raw material for these solutions and products is always a natural clay material: bentonite.

The Business Unit Additives is a major supplier of flame retardants, polymer additives and waxes for plastics, coatings, printing inks and other special applications. As such, patented non-halogenated additives as flame retardants offer an environmentally compatible alternative to flame retardants made from bromine. Halogen-free additives are also very good for protection in housings of smartphones, tablets, plugs and circuit breakers.

With the novel AddWorks® portfolio the Business Unit Additives offers customer specific tailor-made solutions for a broad spectrum of applications for a variety of sectors and industries like agriculture, automotive and transportation, electrical & electronics, construction, packaging as well as textile & fibers. For example Addworks® light stabilizer solutions enable to extend the lifetime of agricultural films, thus reducing material waste. The Clariant material Licocene® as a component of technical textiles, carpets and artificial turf facilitates the recycling of these products considerably and therefore makes them more sustainable.

The Business Unit Pigments earns a leading position worldwide as a supplier of organic pigments, pigment preparations and colorants for coatings, printing inks, plastics and other special applications. Clariant is the first pigment producer to offer high-performance quinacridone pigments based on bio-succinic acid, a renewable raw material.

The Business Unit Masterbatches is a leading manufacturer of pigment and additive concentrates as well as technical compounds for the plastics industry, which also supplies the packaging, consumer goods, healthcare, textile and automobile sectors. Specially developed masterbatch concentrates and compound solutions are used in the medical device and pharmaceutical packaging fields to fulfill very important functions. For example, the packaging must protect the drug or device against light, moisture and oxygen, and materials should not have a negative interaction with the drug or the patient.

Biofuels made from agricultural residues play a key role in making mobility more sustainable worldwide. Clariant has developed the sunliquid® technology for the production of cellulosic ethanol and sugars.

Using the sunliquid® process biofuels and bio-based chemicals made from agricultural residues such as straw are produced sustainably and economically without competing with food or feed production. These non-edible renewable raw materials accrue regionally as a by-product during agricultural practices and do not use additional agricultural land. The production of cellulosic ethanol is virtually CO₂ neutral.

In collaboration with Mercedes-Benz and Haltermann, Clariant has successfully tested a fuel of the future, sunliquid®20 – a premium-grade E20 blend that contains 20% cellulosic ethanol, in a fleet test with Mercedes-Benz series vehicles. The fuel shows excellent performance and sustainability properties: the cellulosic ethanol content exhibits particularly high greenhouse gas savings across the entire value chain and gives the fuel a high knock resistance with 100 octane (RON) and guarantees optimum efficiency. At the same time, particle emissions were reduced by 50%.