Lonza bluesense cracker#
The production was relocated to Sins and finally discontinued.Īt the 1959 AGM, it was decided to back integrate into petrochemistry, and Montecatini was contracted to build the world's smallest cracker in Visp. In the 1940s, Lonza used its C2 basis to enter the vinyl chloride business. In 1956, the production of niacin (an important vitamin) via 5-ethyl-2-methyl-pyridine. Diketene capacity rose to 18'000t per year in 1993. Ketene was initially used to make cellulose acetate for rayon manufacture, but after 1947 Lonza converted most of its ketene to diketene, which was then converted to a range of chemical precursors. In 1928, ketene production started using acetic acid made by oxidation of acetaldehyde. At the start of WWII, Lonza was contracted by the Swiss government to produce synthetic fuel, which it did by converting acetaldehyde to paraldehyde, used as an additive in transport fuel. With calcium cyanamide and calcium nitrate (made from nitric acid), Lonza commercialised formulated fertilisers starting in the 1930s. Ammonia was also converted to nitric acid. In 1925, ammonia production was started, with a process licensed from Casale. In 1923, Lonza started to convert calcium carbide to metaldehyde (sold as a solid fuel under the brand 'Meta' and then slug repellant) via acetylene and acetaldehyde. In addition to an electrolysis plant capable of making 5800 m 3 hydrogen per hour, came metaldehyde, ammonia and ketene.
Several new processes were launched in the 1920s. Competition from electric lighting reduced demand for calcium carbide and in 1915 Lonza started industrial production of calcium cyanamide which became popular as a cheap nitrogenous fertilisers, only to be supplanted by urea. Lonza moved to neighbouring Visp (where it retains a production site today) in 1909. The following year, calcium carbide manufacture began using the electricity to heat a furnace to the 2000 ☌ required for quicklime to react with coal. Initially the company produced electricity. In the course of the 20th century Lonza evolved from hydroelectricity and C2 chemistry, through nitrogen chemistry to petrochemistry before moving into fine chemistry and biochemistry. Lonza was founded in 1897 in the small Swiss town of Gampel, situated in the canton of Valais, taking its name from the nearby river.