News Water & Chemicals
Kemira announces breakthrough in biobased water-soluble polymers production

Kemira has started the full-scale production of its newly developed polymer that is based on biobased feedstock. The first commercial volumes were shipped to one of the wastewater treatment plants of the Helsinki Region Environmental Services (HSY) for trials.

“Sustainability is at the heart of our business strategy and making our product portfolio greener is one core element of it”, says Sampo Lahtinen, vice-president, research and development and technology, EMEA. “The development of completely new and sustainable polymer chemistry doesn’t happen overnight and is costly and time-consuming. Especially for our technically demanding customer applications, so far, it was challenging to find comparable biobased alternatives.”

With this biomass-balanced polyacrylamide, a water-soluble polymer, Kemira is offering a technically equivalent alternative for this special polymer type.

“As a result, we’re not only improving the carbon footprint in our own production but also help our customers to make their processes more sustainable, without any compromise in performance,” Lahtinen continues.

These polymers can be used in various industries, such as in particularly demanding papermaking applications, the water and energy industry.

The novel polymers are manufactured according to the principles of biomass-balance, in which the majority of fossil-based raw materials are replaced by ISCC Plus certified biobased and renewable mass-balanced feedstocks. They are produced in Kemira’s ISCC certified manufacturing facilities in San Giorgio di Nogaro, Italy and Bradford, UK and supplied globally to customers in water-intensive industries.

“Advanced municipal wastewater treatment has still a remarkable climate impact and our goal at HSY is to improve the environmental and overall performance of our treatment plants wherever possible. Replacing fossil-based chemicals by more sustainable alternatives is one element of our strategy. Therefore, we are interested in testing this new polymer full-scale at our plant”, explains Mari Heinonen, director of water services at HSY.