Milan - November 5th - De Nora, in line with its strategic plan to focus on the Electrode business and develop new technologies, has signed a Joint Venture Agreement with ThyssenKrupp Uhde, a 100% subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions, the plant engineering and construction specialist.
The Companies are planning to combine their activities regarding engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for electrolysis plants, e.g. for the chlor-alkali industry. This move will expand the technological platforms and increase the customer proximity as well as global presence of both partners.
The agreement is subject to the approval by the relevant antitrust authorities.
The planned Joint Venture will allow De Nora and ThyssenKrupp to provide a broader range of services and products to their electrolysis customers world-wide. It is intended to combine the plant business and the EPC capabilities, brought in by ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions with the licensing business from UHDENORA (an existing joint venture between the parties) and the plant business of Chlorine Engineers Group (the Japanese subsidiary of De Nora).
Paolo Dellachà, De Nora’s CEO declared: “This planned step will uplift the proven cooperation between our two Companies to a new level. In future, we will be able to respond better and more quickly to customer requirements – irrespective of the technology they employ and the country in which our support is needed.”
Dr. Sami Pelkonen, Head of Electrolysis Division at ThyssenKrupp Uhde, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions, said: “If we can combine our businesses we will be closer to our customers and offer them a broader product portfolio all over the world”.
Among others, the intended Joint Venture’s technology portfolio will comprise Chlorine Engineers BiTAC®-family and DCM technologies, based on filter press design, the UHDENORA/Uhde Single Element technology in all its generations as well as the HCl-ODC technology of UHDENORA/ThyssenKrupp Uhde for the recovery of Chlorine from Hydrochloric acid and NaCl-ODC technologies of Chlorine Engineers and UHDENORA/ThyssenKrupp Uhde, an innovative energy saving process for the production of chlorine and caustic soda. In addition, the Joint Venture is planning to develop highly effective electrochemical energy storage processes such as water electrolysis. All the technologies are using state of the art electrodes and proprietary coatings developed and manufactured by De Nora companies.
The new Company will further develop all technologies contributed by the parties to the new platforms to achieve improvements in terms of performances, economics and technical support for the Customers.
The prospective partners plan to explore innovative electrochemical technologies such as energy storage, building on even stronger R&D capabilities.
De Nora plans to focus on cell manufacturing and supplying noble metal-coated electrodes to the chlor-alkali-industry as well as for all other electrochemical industries in general.
Thus the Group will concentrate on its core business and will reorganize the Japanese and Chinese subsidiaries.