DuPont Breaks Ground for New Titanium Tetrachloride Unit in Tennessee

Construction has begun on a new 100 million pound per year titanium tetrachloride production facility at the DuPont titanium dioxide plant in New Johnsonville, Tenn. Plans for the new USD 30 million facility were announced last October. The unit is expected to begin operations in the summer of 2008.

Unique titanium dioxide manufacturing technology allows DuPont to increase titanium tetrachloride production without affecting the company’s capacity to produce titanium dioxide at New Johnsonville. DuPont is the world’s largest manufacturer of titanium dioxide, a white pigment widely used in the coatings, plastics and paper industries.

“The groundbreaking for this project represents a significant step toward the globalization of our titanium tetrachloride business,” said Global Business Manager Steve Thomas. “It also represents another strategic success for our Business Extensions group which creates new ventures within DuPont Titanium Technologies.” The Business Extensions group was also responsible for last year’s launch of a new process for making parts from titanium metal powder.

Titanium tetrachloride is an intermediate chemical produced during the early steps of the chloride process for manufacturing titanium dioxide. In addition to its use in titanium metal manufacturing, it is essential to the production of certain plastics as well as films used in shopping bags and a broad spectrum of consumer products. The chemical also has specialized applications in pearlescent and metallic pigments used in products ranging from cars and cosmetics to bicycle helmets. Titanium metal increasingly is being used in everything from airplanes to sporting goods and chemical processing equipment.