ATLANTA − The Fire Retardant Additives (FRA) business unit, part of the Huber Engineered Materials (HEM) division of J.M. Huber Corp., announced a significant capital investment to increase production capacity for Martinal^® LEO fine precipitated alumina trihydrate at its Martinswerk Plant in Bergheim, Germany.

“We are pleased to announce this phase two capacity expansion at our Martinswerk operation to support the growing demand of our customers in Europe, India and Asia for our halogen-free fire retardants,” said Martin Schulting, Managing Director of Huber’s FRA business unit in EMEA.  “This substantial investment will increase our production capacity for the high-quality Martinal LEO grades by an additional 20% and represents the single largest investment made over the last 40 years at Martinswerk,” Schulting added. “In addition to this investment, we are committed to reducing our environmental footprint and have initiated ongoing sustainability discussions with various governmental entities that we believe will result in the delivery of several sustainability improvements in line with our company objectives.”

The new capacity will be phased in several steps, with the first incremental volumes scheduled to become available in the second half of 2019, before the expansion project is completed in early 2020.

The Martinal LEO fine precipitated alumina trihydrate grades offer superior processing properties and serve as the company’s global product platform for its customers.

Huber is a global leader in the production of fine precipitated alumina trihydrate and magnesium hydroxide, both non-halogenated fire retardants.  Its FRA business unit has four manufacturing sites in North America and two in Europe.