CristalACTiV™ specialty products are widely used for environmental applications such as stationary and mobile DeNOx catalysis, water treatment and photocatalysis. Serving our customers with the best-performing CristalACTiV™ products requires continuous innovation and development that can be rapidly translated to an economically attractive industrial scale.
The Tronox Research Centre, located in Thann, France, benefits from unique scale-up capabilities to industrialize new titanium dioxide (TiO2) and titanium-based specialty product formulations. The entire development range spans from a few grams to several tonnes. The process technologies we use for each scale carefully mimic the ultimate industrial manufacturing process. This allows for an efficient and controlled product evolution and deployment.
At the Thann Research Centre, over 2000 m2 of pilot space is fully integrated within the manufacturing infrastructure, giving our scientists and technicians easier access to starting materials, reactants and utilities. Our pilot plants are comprised of a large variety of reaction vessels ranging from few liters to several m3 in which different TiO2 slurries of new developmental products are synthesized via the sulphate and the chloride processes. These titania slurries are then submitted to phase separation by means of decantation, centrifugation or filtration using an industrial press-filter. This treatment allows us to remove impurities as well as concentrate the solids to obtain a filter cake. In the next step, thermal treatment is applied on the filter cake with the help of a static calcination furnace, a rotary kiln or a high performance dryer. The resulting TiO2 powder is then milled and packaged for shipment to our customers. All of these pilot capabilities permit continuous and batch manufacturing.
This gives Tronox the required agility to provide its demanding customers with tailored solutions that can be viable at a large scale.
At Tronox, we always strive to go beyond the existing capabilities by investing substantial resources in scouting, testing and eventually rolling out improved process technologies that can deliver novel CristalACTiV™ products in the best interests of our customers.
For more information about our capabilities and new specialty products, we invite you to contact us.
Tronox is continuously developing new CristalACTiV™ materials to meet existing and future environmental regulations and respond to the needs of innovative applications.