Croda do Brasil (part of Croda International Plc) is celebrating the opening of its new Innovation and Customer Experience Centre and Specialty Polymer Plant at its manufacturing site in Campinas (São Paulo State), Brazil.

Since 2013, Croda do Brasil opened several facilities, including a new distribution center; a new reservoir and storage area that offers process automation and improved safety; as well as a new effluent treatment station, which enables 75 percent of the water used at the Campinas facility to be re-used on site. The new Specialty Polymer Plant and the new Innovation and Customer Experience Centre are the final investments as part of the site’s five-year improvement plan.

The Specialty Polymer Plant increases the capacity of Croda’s Campinas manufacturing site by more than 20 percent, allowing the production of a range of polymeric surfactants that can be used across all of Croda’s market segments.

“We have already mapped an extensive group of products to be manufactured at this state-of-the-art plant, and manufacture has started with the production of Atlox 4913, a high performance aqueous polymeric dispersant for agrochemical formulation,” said Cristian Galucci, operations director of Croda Latin America.

Atlox 4913 is a product sold to a diverse group of agrochemical companies across Latin America.

The Innovation and Customer Experience Centre has further enhanced the Personal Care, Health Care, Crop Care and Synthesis laboratory capabilities, with two new analysis laboratories. This investment also expands Croda’s research and development in the region to include their Performance Technologies sector, and its Coatings & Polymers, Polymer Additives, Home Care & Water and Lubricants divisions.