Chemithon History


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Our History

The Chemithon Corporation was established in 1954 by five founding members including a senior engineer from Chevron Chemical Company, all Chemical Engineering graduates of the University of Washington. Today Mr. Burton Brooks, the key original founder, is Chairman of the Board.

The group created Chemithon to commercialize the continuous oleum sulfonation process of alkylbenzene that Mr. Brooks developed when working on his Masters thesis. The first continuous oleum process in 1954 significantly advanced existing technology. Chemithon introduced air/sulfur trioxide sulfonation and the first patented Annular Falling Film Reactor in 1960. Chemithon later developed the Impact Jet Reactor which offers the advantages of versatile operation and ease of maintenance, the Patented Turbo Tube® Reactor for high viscosity fluids, and is currently offering the "fourth generation" design version of the Annular Falling Film Reactor.

Beginning with a market in the U.S. for manufacturers of surfactants, detergents and specialty chemicals, Chemithon soon discovered a worldwide need for quality sulfonation equipment. Chemithon currently has more than 450 operating plants in almost every part of the world, including Africa, South America, Europe and many areas of the Pacific Rim--there are more than 25 Chemithon plants in China alone. Chemithon has built the largest sulfonation production plants in the world and supplies processes and equipment for complete plant systems, all aspects of sulfonation, light and dense powder production, liquid products blending, as well as final product handling, offsite support systems and complete technical services. Markets include Detergents, Specialty Chemicals and Surfactants, Lubricating Oil Additives, Heavy Alkylate Oil Sulfonation and Enhanced Oil Recovery.

Chemithon is today a multinational technology, engineering and manufacturing company that supplies chemical process equipment and services to the detergent and power generation industry. Chemithon customers vary from Fortune 500 companies to small family enterprises. Much of the equipment and technology of the company involves generating sulfur trioxide that is used either to produce surfactants for the detergent industry or for flue gas conditioning at power generation plants. Other environmental equipment products are ammonia conditioning equipment, ammonia systems for NOx removal utilizing anhydrous ammonia and aqueous ammonia, and the new SafeDeNOx™ urea-to-ammonia process. SO2 gas generation systems are used in the mining industry.

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