Finnish chemical company Kemira to invest 40M€ in two new plants at its facilities in Catalonia

The Finnish chemical company Kemira will carry out two new investments totaling nearly 40 million euros to build two new plants at its facilities in La Canonja (Tarragona, Catalonia). On one hand, the company plans to build the first activated carbon reactivation plant on the Iberian Peninsula, an innovative technology to remove contaminants from drinking water. On the other hand, Kemira will boost the production of aluminum chlorohydrate (ACH), enabling the company to produce this high‑performance coagulant mainly used for drinking water treatment in treatment plants.

For its expansion projects in Catalonia, Kemira has received support from ACCIÓ-Catalonia Trade & Investment, the agency for business growth of the Government of Catalonia.

At its Tarragona facilities, the Finnish multinational specialises in producing products for water treatment, which are later distributed to urban treatment plants. With these investments, Kemira will increase the sustainability of its processes for obtaining ACH and position itself as a reference supplier in activated carbon reactivation, a market with growing demand.

“Building this new capacity in Spain will strengthen our local water treatment offering, allowing us to capitalize on increasing demand in the region”

Tuija Pohjolainen-Hiltunen, Executive Vice President of Water Solutions at Kemira

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The Finnish company has begun planning to invest around 20 million euros in the construction of an activated carbon reactivation plant, as it communicated to the market last February, which would be the first facility of this kind on the Iberian Peninsula. Kemira aims to double its revenue in La Canonja through a project currently in the pre‑engineering phase, scheduled to be operational in 2029.

Tuija Pohjolainen-Hiltunen, Executive Vice President of Water Solutions of Kemira, highlighted that "building this new capacity in Spain will strengthen our local water treatment offering, allowing us to capitalize on increasing demand in the region".

This plant will be dedicated to treating drinking water and wastewater on the Iberian Peninsula. With the new installation, the company will give Catalonia the capacity to reactivate activated carbon and help meet the growing demand derived from increasingly strict regulations for contaminant removal.

Activated carbon is a key technology for removing contaminants from drinking water. Reactivation regenerates spent granular or pelletized activated carbons to be regenerated and reused up to seven times, promoting more sustainable processes and making them ready for reuse.

The second investment planned by Kemira, also around 20 million euros and already underway, is the ACH production plant, as the company announced in the summer. This is a high‑basicity aluminum polychloride that offers superior performance compared with other techniques for removing color and particles from water to be treated. It is also especially efficient during periods of heavy rain and flooding, which are increasingly common in several European cities.

ACH offers a significantly higher aluminum concentration compared to conventional products such as aluminum sulfate or standard aluminum polychloride. This not only improves treatment efficiency but also reduces CO2 emissions related to logistics, making it a more sustainable option.

This will be the multinational’s first plant to produce this product in southern Europe, with plans to be operational in 2028. It will complement the production the company already has in the United States and Poland.

Kemira is the leading water treatment company in the European and North African markets and one of the world’s top companies in sustainable chemical solutions for water‑intensive industries. Founded in 1920, Kemira closed 2025 with annual revenues of 2.8 billion euros and a global workforce of around 4,900 employees. The company is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.