Archroma, a global leader in color and specialty chemicals towards sustainable solutions, has officially inaugurated its new Global Competence Center for Whiteness in Prat, near Barcelona, Spain.

The Center, which opened on July 5, 2018, further establishes Archroma as a global whiteness leader and underlines Archroma’s ambition to bring new, innovative whiteness and brightness solutions to the specialty paper and packaging markets.

Together with the Global Competence Centers for Colorants (Reinach, Switzerland) and for Surface & Coating Technology (Bradford, UK), the new Global Competence Center for Whiteness in Prat forms a unique network of experts fully dedicated to developing innovative product packages to support its customer production process with integrated system solutions.

Whiteness and brightness solutions for paper can be achieved with optical brightening agents complemented with shading dyes and pigments. The new Global Competence Center for Whiteness is therefore ideally located in Prat, where Archroma has major OBA (Optical Brightening Agent) and colorant manufacturing plants, recently extended with additional tetrasulfonated OBA production.

With this, Archroma confirms its unwavering commitment to OBA and the packaging and paper industries. The investment is the second step of a development plan started with the above mentioned OBA plant extension, with further investments to come.

The Global Competence Center for Whiteness team will work in close collaboration with Archroma’s innovation organization and the sales teams around the globe, ensuring point-on market relevance of new solutions and innovations, both in terms of performance and sustainability.

During the last few years, Archroma has launched several eco-advanced innovations in the area of whiteness, such as Leucophor^® MT liquid, a REACH-registered, urea-free, modified tetrasulfonated OBA that offers papermakers a new, cost-effective option to achieve high whiteness levels in a surface application, especially at the size press, and more recently on the North American market, Leucophor^® ACK liquid, a patented ultra-concentrated, urea-free disulfonated OBA for brilliant whiteness in stock and coating applications.

At the opening ceremony held on July 5, 2018, Andrew Jackson, Product Manager OBAs, Archroma Packaging & Paper Specialties, commented: “At Archroma, we continuously challenge the status quo in the deep belief that we can make our industry sustainable. As the paper market has been re-morphing and transforming in the past years, we see a growing demand for chemical solutions that support sustainability. And as consumers are increasingly looking for safer and eco-friendlier options, Archroma is committed to help its customers answer the call, and that clearly includes making sure whiteness solutions are designed accordingly.”

Leucophor^® is a trademark of Archroma registered in many countries.