CUYAHOGA FALLS, OH – Emerald Kalama Chemical, a business group of Emerald Performance Materials, announced that the company’s board of directors has approved the plan to add a second benzoic acid purification and finishing process at its facility in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The new process will add an additional 100,000 metric tons per year capacity of high-purity benzoic acid (Purox^® B) and also provide an increased production capability for benzaldehyde. The project is slated for completion in late 2016.

The company previously announced it had begun engineering the expansion in April, which would focus on high-purity benzoic acid to support growing demand for the company’s Kalama^® and Purox^® brands of benzoic acid flakes, sodium benzoate granules and liquid benzoic acid, which it provides for food and beverage, personal care, pharmaceutical, and a variety of industrial applications. The main products from the company’s reactor train — benzoic acid and benzaldehyde — are key intermediates used for the production of important downstream products, notably K-FLEX^® plasticizers and the Kalama^® aroma chemical line.