SNF is the global leader in manufacturing

polyacrylamide Polyacrylamide (abbreviated as PAM) is a polymer with the formula (-CH2CHCONH2-). It has a linear-chain structure. PAM is highly water-absorbent, forming a soft gel when hydrated. In 2008, an estimated 750,000,000 kg were produced, mainly fo ...

s with a capacity of 1190 kt/y (active equivalent). These water-soluble

polymers A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic an ...

are used as flocculants and coagulants in solid/water separation to recycle water, rheology modifiers and friction reducers. These functionalities have many uses where water is used, in

drinking water Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, a ...

production,

wastewater treatment Wastewater treatment is a process used to remove contaminants from wastewater and convert it into an effluent that can be returned to the water cycle. Once returned to the water cycle, the effluent creates an acceptable impact on the environme ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...

enhanced oil recovery Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a reservoir's oil, compared to 20% to 40% using ...

hydraulic fracturing Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

and

cosmetics Cosmetics are constituted mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources, or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics have various purposes. Those designed for personal care and skin care can be used to cleanse or protect ...

. The SNF Group comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in over 70 countries and operates 21 production sites in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Its headquarters is located in Andrézieux,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. SNF has customers in over 130 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries. SNF is one of the major chemical companies in France. At the end of 2020, the company employed over 6,600 people for sales of 3.0 G€.

Business Segments

SNF’s products operate in a variety of markets. The driving factors of SNF’s growth are the scarcity of natural resources: water,

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

and minerals.

Drinking water production

SNF manufactures and supplies organic coagulants such as

PolyDADMAC Polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride (shortened polyDADMAC or polyDDA), also commonly polyquaternium-6, is a homopolymer of diallyldimethylammonium chloride (DADMAC). The molecular weight of polyDADMAC is typically in the range of hundreds of thou ...

and

Polyamines A polyamine is an organic compound having more than two amino groups. Alkyl polyamines occur naturally, but some are synthetic. Alkylpolyamines are colorless, hygroscopic, and water soluble. Near neutral pH, they exist as the ammonium derivatives. ...

as well as

flocculants and provides the polymer equipment and service required by the

production plant.

Wastewater treatment

Wastewater treatment Wastewater treatment is a process used to remove contaminants from wastewater and convert it into an effluent that can be returned to the water cycle. Once returned to the water cycle, the effluent creates an acceptable impact on the environme ...

is SNF’s historical business.

Polyacrylamide Polyacrylamide (abbreviated as PAM) is a polymer with the formula (-CH2CHCONH2-). It has a linear-chain structure. PAM is highly water-absorbent, forming a soft gel when hydrated. In 2008, an estimated 750,000,000 kg were produced, mainly fo ...

flocculants are used in the primary settlers as well as in the

sludge Sludge is a semi-solid slurry that can be produced from a range of industrial processes, from water treatment, wastewater treatment or on-site sanitation systems. For example, it can be produced as a settled suspension obtained from conventiona ...

dewatering Dewatering is the removal of water from a location. This may be done by wet classification, centrifugation, filtration, or similar solid-liquid separation processes, such as removal of residual liquid from a filter cake by a filter press as part ...

stage. For industrial water treatment, SNF provides heavy metal chelatants, dispersants and scale inhibitors.

Oil

Polyacrylamides are used in

Enhanced Oil Recovery Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a reservoir's oil, compared to 20% to 40% using ...

(EOR) to improve the speed and amount of oil extracted from the

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

. The techniques used to improve oil recovery can be straightforward polymer flooding (PF), surfactant polymer flooding (SP) or alkaline surfactant polymer flooding (ASP). The latter technique, when applicable, has been known to sweep the reservoir of 90% of the oil in place.

Gas (Tight Gas, Shale Gas, Coalbed Methane)

With the success of

, also referred to as slickwater fracturing, as a means of economically recovering

unconventional gas Unconventional gas is natural gas obtained from sources of production that are, in a given era and location, considered to be new and different when compared with conventional gas. Sources that are at times considered to be unconventional include ...

reserves, use of polymeric friction reducers has become widespread. Polyacrylamides are used for their drag reducing properties on water to decrease frictional pressure losses, thereby maximizing bottom hole injection pressures allowing for a higher pressure from the same number of pump trucks.

Mining

In addition to coagulants, flocculants and dispersants, SNF produces also a range of mining reagents based on xanthate chemistry. The following as some of the markets served by SNF in mining and metallurgical applications: slurry solid/liquid separation, pelletization and briquetting, flotation of sulphides ores, reduction of scale deposits, viscosity modifiers for hydraulic transport, mining backfill and grinding, Dust control, environmental remediation and dredging.

Paper

Widely used by the

paper Industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process The pulp is fed to a paper machine where it is formed as a paper web an ...

s sold by SNF under the trademark FLORET are used as processing aids and applied on the wet end of a paper machine either alone or as a part of a multi-component system. They enhance productivity, retention and

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditio ...

. Coagulants act as fixative for various chemicals such as

dyes A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...

and sizing agents, charge neutralization for pitch and cationic demand control. SNF also manufactures synthetic dry strength resins which are acrylamide based, glyoxalated (FLOSTRENGTH) or issued from

Hofmann rearrangement The Hofmann rearrangement (Hofmann degradation) is the organic reaction of a primary amide to a primary amine with one fewer carbon atom. The reaction involves oxidation of the nitrogen followed by rearrangement of the carbonyl and nitrogen to gi ...

. These resins, applied in the thick stock, imparts higher strength properties to paper & board, allows fiber substitution by lower quality grades or by fillers (

PCC PCC may refer to: Science and technology * Pearson correlation coefficient (''r''), in statistics * Periodic counter-current chromatography, a type of affinity chromatography * Portable C Compiler, an early compiler for the C programming language ...

, GCC) . Productivity increases have been reported.

Agriculture

Polyacrylamide superabsorbents can absorb up to 400 times their weight in water, they are used for many applications such as reforestation, horticulture, landscaping and ornamentals. These products sold under the AQUASORB tradename, increase the water holding capacity of soils for several years, reduce irrigation time and water usage, and decrease water and nutrients losses linked to leaching. Soluble polyacrylamide polymers are used to flocculate the irrigated soil thus improving water penetration and soil aeration while diminishing soil erosion.

Textile

FLOPRINT textile thickeners are used in pigment, reactive and dispersed printing. They are available as standard inverse emulsions, dewatered inverse emulsions and powders. SNF also manufactures textile auxiliaries used as antimigrants, dispersants,

sizing Sizing or size is a substance that is applied to, or incorporated into, other materials—especially papers and textiles—to act as a protective filler or glaze. Sizing is used in papermaking and textile manufacturing to change the absorption ...

and fixing agents.

Cosmetics

SNF manufactures three types of cosmetic ingredients, conditioning agents, rheology modifiers and carbomers under the trademarks FLOCARE and FLOGEL. The first, known as

Polyquaternium Polyquaternium is the International Nomenclature for Cosmetic Ingredients designation for several polycationic polymers that are used in the personal care industry. Polyquaternium is a neologism used to emphasize the presence of quaternary amm ...

6, 7, 11 and 22. is used for hair conditioning and body

shampoos Shampoo () is a hair care product, typically in the form of a viscous liquid, that is used for cleaning hair. Less commonly, shampoo is available in solid bar format. Shampoo is used by applying it to wet hair, massaging the product into the s ...

. They have an affinity for

keratin Keratin () is one of a family of structural fibrous proteins also known as ''scleroproteins''. Alpha-keratin (α-keratin) is a type of keratin found in vertebrates. It is the key structural material making up scales, hair, nails, feathers, ho ...

thus protect, enhance and repair the hair fiber. Rheology modifiers are based on inverse emulsion

thickening agents A thickening agent or thickener is a substance which can increase the viscosity of a liquid without substantially changing its other properties. Edible thickeners are commonly used to thicken sauces, soups, and puddings without altering thei ...

http://www.happi.com/articles/2009/04/trends-in-polymers-for-skin-care (Trends in Polymers for Skin Care, Part I) for skin care formulations and hair combing creams. Carbomers, based on precipitation technology, are the most widely used thickening agents in the cosmetic industry.

Functional Solutions

SNF also manufactures specialty polymers such as FLOSET for the construction industry, FLOSPERSE as dispersants, FLOSOFT and FLOGEL in home care applications, METALSORB as heavy metal chelating agents and ODORFLO as odour control agents.

Production

SNF has always heavily invested in production facilities across the globe, as a result SNF has a total of 21 state-of-the-art production sites in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia; with 7 major plants in Andrézieux, France – Riceboro, Georgia, US – Plaquemine, Louisiana, US – Taixing and Rudong, China – Ulsan, Korea and Vizag, India. In 2020 SNF's worldwide polymer production capacity is 1235 kt/y (active equivalent).

FAQ

SNF means Société Nouvelle Floerger. Floerger= flocculent + Schtrechenberger. Schtrechenberger was the previous company name that owned the Oziol company where M. PICH was working. After it went bankrupt, M. PICH bought back the company and started in 1978 with 17 employees, stirring polymer in metal drums with wooden sticks. Société Nouvelle was mandatory when a company was coming from a bankruptcy. It means “new company”.

References

External links

* Official website
www.snf.com
Chemical companies of France French brands Companies based in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes