Historical highlights: A long tradition of innovation at Ticona

Ticona is a business of Celanese AG that produces and markets engineering plastics in an environment where innovations are very much the order of the day. Aiming for the future is an established tradition at Ticona, as history shows. The company's roots extend back into the 19th century.

In 1863 a factory for the production of coal-tar dyes was set up at Höchst am Main as the forerunner of Farbwerke Hoechst. At about the same time, the first foundations of polymer chemistry were being laid down in Britain, the US and Germany.

While one line of Ticona's parentage extends back to Hoechst, the other had its origins in Basel in 1912, when the chemist Henri Dreyfus and his brother Camille joined with the entrepreneur Alexander Clavel-Respinger to form Cellonit Gesellschaft Dreyfus & Co. The company's main activities were the development of material for photographic films and the production of paints for "flying machines" and Zeppelin airships.

The years between the World Wars saw both companies embark on radical change and branch out in new directions. In 1916-17 the Dreyfus brothers' company set up subsidiaries in Britain and the US. In 1927 the American subsidiary was renamed the Celanese Corporation of America. It specialised in the production of fibres, plastics and chemicals.

In Germany two years earlier, Hoechst and other companies, including BASF, Bayer and Agfa, linked up to form the chemical giant IG Farben. When IG Farben was dismembered in 1947, Hoechst emerged as an independent company once again.

Quite separately from each other, both Hoechst and Celanese grew in importance as manufacturers of plastics in the 1950s. Ticona eventually came into being in 1961, when the Celanese Corporation of America and Hoechst set up Ticona Polymerwerke as a joint venture.

The production of the acetal copolymer Hostaform® POM, a high-performance plastic for engineering applications, began at the Ticona site in Kelsterbach two years later.





In 1987 the Celanese Corporation was taken over by Hoechst and merged with the American Hoechst Corporation to form the Hoechst Celanese Corporation in the US. The year 1994 saw the start of restructuring in the Hoechst Group, which eventually joined forces with Rhône-Poulenc to form Aventis.

As one aspect of this development, a large part of Hoechst's industrial chemicals operations was brought under the Celanese umbrella. Meanwhile, all engineering plastics became the responsibility of Ticona, which operates as a separate entity.

In 1999 the restructuring process was completed. Celanese AG and hence also Ticona were spun off from Hoechst and have since been operating independently. The final chapter in this development so far has been the admission of Celanese AG to the official listings of the New York and Frankfurt stock exchanges, which took place in October 1999.

In 2000 Ticona opened up a new plant for cyclic-olefin copolymer in Oberhausen/Germany.

In 2004 Ticona extended their production capacity for POM in Kelsterbach / Germany to 90.000 jato and in Bishop / USA to 100.000 jato. Additional capacity extension for GUR PE-UHMW in Oberhausen / Germany to 40.000 jato.

In May 2005 Ticona, Polyplastics Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company Inc. (MGC) and Korea Engineering Plastics Co. Ltd.(KEP) opened up a new R&D, production and compounding plant in Nantong / China.