Archroma marks three years of innovative sustainability

Swiss color and specialty-chemicals developer Archroma marks its third anniversary in October with innovations that point to sustainability.

Based in Basel, Switzerland, Archroma began with the acquisition of Clariant’s textile, paper and emulsions businesses. In 2014, Archroma acquired 49 percent of M. Dohmen, an international group specializing in the production of textile dyes and chemicals for the automotive, carpet and apparel sectors, and in July 2015 it added the global textile chemicals business of BASF.

Among Archroma’s developments are:

• Advanced Denim, a dyeing system for denim. Advanced Denim uses dyestuffs that bond more easily to cotton, minimizing the resource usage of traditional dyeing of denim. As a result, outdoor-clothing bran Patagonia is using 84 percent less water, 30 percent less energy and emitting 25 percent less CO₂ than conventional synthetic indigo denim dyeing processes.
• EarthColors, a range of “biosynthetic” dyes for cotton and cellulose-based fabrics designed to provide rich red, brown and green colors to denim and casualwear. In this patent-pending process, Archroma makes use of almond shells, saw palmetto, rosemary leaves, and other natural, non-edible agricultural waste products that would otherwise be sent to a landfill.
• Smartrepel^® Hydro, a water repellency agent based on non-fluorine chemistry for outdoor clothing in cotton and synthetic fibers.
• This spring, the company introduced eco-advanced solutions in its range of optical brightening agents for printing and writing papers. Both innovations, marketed under the names Leucophor^® ACS and Advanced Whitening, offer solutions that require reduced dosage for papermakers, thereby lowering their transport costs and carbon footprint.