Ashland Aqualon Functional Ingredients, a commercial unit of Ashland Inc., began construction on a new nonionic synthetic thickener manufacturing facility in Alizay, France. The new manufacturing facility is scheduled for completion and start-up in late spring of 2012 and will increase global capacity of Aquaflow nonionic synthetic associative thickeners (NSATs). Europe in particular, has recently seen a dramatic increase in demand for Aquaflow NSATs, the company said. The new facility will have capability to produce the full line of low-, mid- and high-shear effective Aquaflow thickeners.