Solvay is a Belgian multinational chemical company established in 1863, with its headquarters located in Neder-Over-Heembeek, Brussels, Belgium. In 2015, it realized €12.4 billion in revenues, €2.336 billion of

EBITDA A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced , , or ) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, stat ...

, 43% of its sales in emerging high-growth countries, 90% of its sales in markets where it is ranked among the top three manufacturers. With 145 sites, Solvay employs 30,900 people in 53 countries.

History

Catalyst - 2015-08-08 - Andy Mabbett - 02

Founded in 1863 by Ernest Solvay and his brother Alfred Solvay to produce

sodium carbonate Sodium carbonate, , (also known as washing soda, soda ash and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2CO3 and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield moderately alkaline solutions ...

by the

Solvay process The Solvay process or ammonia-soda process is the major industrial process for the production of sodium carbonate (soda ash, Na2CO3). The ammonia-soda process was developed into its modern form by the Belgian chemist Ernest Solvay during the 1860s ...

, the company has diversified into two main sectors of activity:

chemicals A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...

and

plastics Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptabi ...

. Before World War I, Solvay was the largest multinational company in the world. It was formerly also active in

pharmaceuticals A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and re ...

, but agreed to sell that entire division to

Abbott Labs Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known dr ...

for €4.5 billion in September 2009, a deal completed in February 2010. In April 2011, the firm agreed to the €3.4 billion acquisition of French-based chemicals company Rhodia which was completed in September 2011. Since January 2012, the new Solvay is listed on the NYSE Euronext in Paris and joined the

CAC 40 The CAC 40 (french: CAC quarante ) (''Cotation Assistée en Continu'') is a benchmark French stock market index. The index represents a capitalization-weighted measure of the 40 most significant stocks among the 100 largest market caps on the E ...

index in September 2012. Solvay is historically listed on the NYSE Euronext in Brussels and part of BEL20 index. Following its integration with Rhodia, the Committee of Executive Members at Solvay reorganised its various business units into five segments – Consumer Chemicals, Advanced Materials, Performance Chemicals, Functional Polymers and Corporate & Business Services, effective from 2013. The company is a supporter of the

Solvay Conference The Solvay Conferences (french: Conseils Solvay) have been devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in both physics and chemistry. They began with the historic invitation-only 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics, considered a turning point i ...

s that were started by Ernest Solvay in 1911. On December 3, 2015, Solvay launched a share issue sent to existing shareholders, completing funding for the $5.5 billion purchase of Cytec Industries Inc.

Corporate affairs

The company's head office is located in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

. It was previously in

Ixelles (French, ) or ( Dutch, ), is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located to the south-east of Brussels' city centre, it is geographically bisected by the City of Brussels. It is also bordered by the munic ...

, Brussels Solvay's

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

subsidiary, Solvay America, Inc., is based in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

.Harris County Improvement District #3
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''Upper Kirby''. Retrieved on December 10, 2008.

Products

Solvay is a main partner of Solar Impulse and has contributed research and development resources to their solar powered airplane project. That aircraft conducted its first test flight on 3. December 2009, and since then has made solar-powered flights from Switzerland to Spain and Morocco in 2012. In 2015–2016, ''Solar Impulse 2'' flew around the world, the first such journey by a solar-powered aircraft.

Fuel cell technology

SolviCore, a joint venture by

Umicore Umicore N.V.. formerly '' Union Minière'', is a multinational materials technology company headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Formed in 1989 by the merger of four companies in the mining and smelting industries, Umicore has since reshaped ...

and Solvay in the field of

fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...

s is already pre-marketing membrane-electrode assemblies for different types of fuel cells for portable or mobile use. New generation lithium batteries for hybrid vehicles components make use of Solvay fluorinated polymers in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Soil remediation

Novosol is a

sodium bicarbonate Sodium bicarbonate ( IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda, is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt composed of a sodium cation ( Na+) and a bicarbonate anion ( HCO3− ...

-based process for treating and recovering mineral residues contaminated with heavy metals.

Renewable feedstock

Solvay is working on the development and industrialization of the proprietary Epicerol process for manufacturing

epichlorohydrin Epichlorohydrin (abbreviated ECH) is an organochlorine compound and an epoxide. Despite its name, it is not a halohydrin. It is a colorless liquid with a pungent, garlic-like odor, moderately soluble in water, but miscible with most polar organ ...

from natural

glycerin Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...

Legal affairs

Solvay Specialty Polymers USA, LLC is currently under litigation for its

per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain. An early definition, from 2011, required that they contain at least one perfluoroalkyl ...

(PFAS) contamination of water sources and soil. PFAS, a group of more than 4,000 compounds used in nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, firefighting foam and a range of other products, do not break down in the environment, and therefore accumulate in the body. They have been linked to cancer, fertility problems, liver damage, high cholesterol, and other health problems. In November 2020, the

New Jersey Attorney General The attorney general of New Jersey is a member of the executive cabinet of the state and oversees the Department of Law and Public Safety. The office is appointed by the governor of New Jersey, confirmed by the New Jersey Senate, and term limit ...

announced its filing of two lawsuits "to compel the clean-up of contamination and recover Natural Resource Damages (NRDs)", one of which is against Solvay Specialty Polymers USA, LLC and Arkema Inc., alleging they are "two companies responsible for widespread contamination from toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) emanating from a Gloucester County facility, which has contaminated public drinking water in the region." This is part of an ongoing and growing investigation. Solvay impeded the availability of an analytical standard by legal maneuver.

References

External links

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Solvay 150 years history
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solvay Group (Company) 1863 establishments in Belgium Belgian brands Pharmaceutical companies of Belgium Chemical companies of Belgium Chemical companies established in 1863 Companies listed on Euronext Brussels Life sciences industry Manufacturing companies based in Brussels Multinational companies headquartered in Belgium Pharmaceutical companies established in 1863 Plastics companies of Belgium