Specialist in water-based additives Coatex

SPECIALIST IN WATERBASED ADDITIVES

With a core business focus on the design and production of water-based rheology additives for use in a wide variety of water-based processes and formulations, French company Coatex – part of the Arkema Group – has established a strong position in Europe in a highly competitive sector.

Coatex is looking to grow rapidly and increase turnover by 50 per cent in the next five years. According to the company’s executive team, its focus on water-based products, its continued internationalisation and its policy of avoiding over-diversification will be instrumental in achieving its goals.

Coatex’s key product areas are in paper and board (producing minerals for slurries, and process additives); construction (focusing on water-based processes), supplying rheology additives for the manufacture of acrylic paints and concrete; water treatment and for the production of a range of minerals (including calcium carbonate, titanium dioxide, talc and kaolin).

The paper and board side of the business accounts for around 50 per cent of revenues. The company’s additives are used in fine-tuning paper coating processes, and Coatex supplies the industry both directly and indirectly. Jacques Laluet, general manager for sales and marketing, explained: “We supply the paper and board industry via two channels. The first is indirectly, through the use of pigment slurries, and we have developed special grades of products for these slurries. The second channel involves selling the additives that are used in the coating process directly to the paper and board industry.”

Strong partnerships

Coatex works in close partnership with its customers in the development of products, including technical collaborations on the fine-tuning of additives. It produces both bespoke solutions, and standard ranges, and has developed several product lines for the paper and board industry. The main driver for companies in the sector is to reduce cost, so this is a major factor in Coatex’s work with its customers.

Marketing director EMEA Francois Court explained: “We do this by reformulating to use cheaper components – this obviously will involve some process issues, and this is where the rheology additives come into play in order to solve these technological barriers that arise when you try to reformulate. This has been a main driver with one of our partners, OMIA – a leading supplier of calcium carbonate slurries. We have worked closely with this company to help paper producers

Coatex technician providing technical assistance

High shear rheometers

Left: François Court, Right: Jacques Laluet

reformulate and use more and more calcium carbonate in their formulations in order to reduce the final costs.”

Jacques Laluet said that another positive effect of this work is to help producers reduce their carbon footprint. “There has been a development in slurries over the last 30 years. We started with slurries at 60 per cent solid content, and this figure is now around 80 per cent, which means we have made a significant reduction in the amount of water transported around Europe. Also, by increasing the solids content of coating colours, it means the producer uses less energy in the paper drying process so there is an advantage both in terms of cost and of carbon footprint. Across the industry, there is a push for continual innovation to achieve improvements in these areas of cost and carbon footprint reduction.” Global expansion to continue

While focusing on these key elements of its business, Coatex is also expanding globally. It has two plants in Europe, in the Netherlands and France, with the latter also housing its R&D centre and technical centre for Europe. It has a plant and technical centre in the USA and the latest addition to its facilities was a new technical centre opened last year in China, followed by a plant to serve the paper, board and other industries in China and Asia-Pacific.

“More than 50 per cent of our last run of paper-making machines were manufactured in China,” said Francois Court, “so this was a crucial step for Coatex in order to be able to serve the global market.” Next on the radar are development projects in South America, where the company currently has a sales office in Brazil. “The paper industry is very international, and our customers expect their partners to be able to follow them on a global basis. We are a relatively small company with 350 staff, but it is important for us to be a global business. We are also helped in this area by being part of the Arkema Group, and the group’s existing networks and supply chain help us in developing our international footprint. For instance in China we have a Coatex plant based on a larger industrial plant owned by Arkema.”

The company acknowledges that future growth will come through further innovation. With the kinds of new machines that are being installed in Asia, new additives are required. And at the same time, in Europe, where the paper and board sector is under more pressure, there’s a demand for new additives to help increase competitiveness. With its continued focus on innovation, cost reduction and environmental responsibility, Coatex is well placed to meet these demands. n