Successful Completion of Chemical Process Start-up of New Polymeric Flame Retardant

Phil Black - PII Editor 25/11/2014

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ICL Industrial Products (“ICL IP”), a segment of ICL, today announced that it has successfully completed the chemical process start-up of a new manufacturing facility in Israel for the production of FR-122P, ICL IP’s new polymeric flame retardant. Samples from the full-scale production process have been dried at ICL IP’s pilot plant, found to meet required specifications of the product, and are currently being sent to customers for their evaluation. Startup activities related to the filtration and drying part of the production process have been ongoing without encountering any significant technological obstacles to date.

The recently completed production facility in Israel is currently ramping up its activities for commercial production of FR 122P. The FR-122P production facility, which will have a production capacity of 10,000MT, joins another ICL IP facility in the Netherlands which is already producing commercial quantities of FR-122P, and is expected to help ICL IP meet growing market demand.

ICL IP’s FR-122P product replaces its previous flame retardant, HBCD, currently the standard used in EPS/XPS insulation foams, and which, according to European Union regulations, will be phased-out of the market by August 2015. The product is derived from a licensing agreement that Bromine Compounds Limited (a business unit of ICL IP) entered into with Dow Global Technologies LLC for the manufacture of FR-122P.

ICL and Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) previously announced a joint venture for the production of ICL’s FR-122P and Albemarle’s GreenCrest™ polymeric flame retardant at ICL’s FR-122P plants in the Netherlands and Israel.