NIGU

A Short Review

NIGU Chemie

In 1947 Mattias Thoma founded the "Chemischen Werke Lowi". The only product then was guanidine carbonate. In the 50's amongst others nitroguanidine was added to the product range. The expanding market for nitroguanidine led in 1964 to the foundation of "NIGU Chemie". From 1987 SKW Trostberg AG, the present EVONIK Degussa GmbH, acquired, in two stages, a 100% share of the company. Together with the former SKW sites on the river Alz, NIGU Chemie presents the AlzChem holding GmbH. Since 2009 and after the spin-off from EVONIK Degussa, NIGU Chemie GmbH and AlzChem Trostberg GmbH belong to bluO, a financial investor with its registered office in Luxemburg.

Already in the 70's, a then unique sulfuric acid recycling plant was put into operation, with it concerns for environmental protection were well met. Since then the neutralization of weak acid, which previously led to oversize gypsum stockpiles (lime + sulfuric acid) or higher nitrate fractions (lime + nitric acid) that ended up in sewage water, has been dropped. At the same time production yields of nitroguanidine could be increased to an outstanding 97%. An example which shows that environmental protective measures amongst other things, can also lead to increased production.

Today technologically advanced airbag inflator and seat belt pretension systems, belong to vehicle occupant safety systems, with the highest growth. Nitroguanidine, used in gas propellants and boron- potassium-nitrate as an igniting mixture makes the contribution from NIGU a highly significant one. In close contact with our customers an acid free gas composition formula based on nitroguanidine was developed. The non-toxic, yield optimized gas generant satisfies all today’s requirements for technical reliability, long running thermal stability, environmental friendliness and cost-effectiveness. Because of these properties nitroguanidine is used increasingly by the leading companies in airbag gas generators and seat belt pretensioners.

A further application for our nitroguanidine and its derivatives is the manufacture of plant protecting agents In the early 80's it was recognized from. Shell the effect of heterocyclic nitromethylene compounds as insecticides. This new chemical group drew great interest to itself as a possible insecticide. This discovery was followed up by companies such as Bayer, Takeda, Nippon Soda and Ciba (today Syngenta) to name but a few. The great breakthrough came in 1984, when by the addition of a 3-pyridyl methyl group; the insecticide effect could be significantly increased. For this reason highly effective agrochemicals arose from this family, and it can be expected that neonicotinoid will be the most important insecticide the next future. NIGU Chemie is today the most significant supplier for the component nitroguanidine.

With the new business area NIGU Bioselect in 1993 the entrance in future market of supplies for biotechnologies, diagnostics and pharmaceuticals took place. Thereby technical guanidine hydrochloride from the AlzChem site in Schalchen is purified by NIGU in Waldkraiburg for use in biotechnologies. "Biotech Guanidine Hydrochloride" is used by down stream processing in the production of modern recombinant (genetically manufactured) pharmaceutical additives. With our producs we bring proteins into the correct form. BIOSELECT guanidine hydrochloride is for example used in the production of Rapilysin from Roche, a modern highly effective medicine used to dissolve blood clots (heart attack).

A further application of our BIOSELECT guanidine salts is their use in extraction buffers for nucleic acid diagnostics. This is concerned with the isolation of DNA and RNA fragments from biological specimens and subsequent clinical or forensic diagnostics ("genetic fingerprinting") and molecular biological research respectively. Modern production equipment conforming to GMP standards, for highly purified guanidine hydrochloride, guanidine thiocyanate and further guanidine salt derivatives, as well as a worldwide unique reprocessing plant for industrial process waste water from our customers, which contains guanidine, are the result of a rapid growth in the BIOSELECT products as well as our practiced environmental awareness.