One of India's leading manufacturers of inorganic chemicals, TCL's products and production processes are benchmarked with the best of global touchstones and meet the most rigorous international specifications

The company's state-of-the-art manufacturing systems are backed by a highly efficient and committed marketing team. The chemicals strategic business unit (SBU) of Tata Chemicals, oversees both forward and backward integration across a wide spectrum of products and business segments

The Chemicals SBU comprises:

Soda ash
This multipurpose chemical is used in a variety of industries, most prominently in the manufacture of glass, where it reduces the melting temperature of the sand used in glass formation and helps in the 'workability', or shaping, of glass articles.

Soda ash is also a major ingredient in the making of soaps and detergents. Here it is employed as a builder, or filler, to give a smoother surface in formulations of soaps, detergents and other cleaning compounds.

This resourceful alkali, the least expensive of soluble alkalis, is widely used in the production of other chemicals. Soda ash is used in mineral processing in mining, pulp and paper manufacture, the making of sodium compounds, water treatment, metal refining, textile processing, cleaning preparations, petroleum and metallurgical refining, iron and steel, aluminum, and drugs.

Cement
Cement is a major success story for TCL, and a fine example of how the company's philosophy of 'avoid, reduce and recycle' operates.

The cement plant at Mithapur was set up solely to consume the solid waste generated during the manufacture of soda ash. The plant has an installed capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day and it manufactures three varieties of cement: Ordinary Portland Cement (grades 43 and 53) and Pozzolana Portland Cement (under the Shudh Cement brand name).

Caustic soda
Due to its adoption of energy-efficient, membrane-cell technology and the captive availability of salt and of power, TCL has been able to deliver low-cost caustic soda to the market.

As a versatile alkali, caustic soda is used in a variety of industries, the major ones being rayon, cellophane, soap, pulp and paper. Apart from caustic soda, TCL also produces hydrochloric acid and liquid chlorine.

Bromine
TCL manufactures several variants of bromine and bromine-based compounds, such as liquid bromine technical and hydrobromic acid.

Bromine is used primarily in the manufacture of organic and inorganic bromides. It is also used as a crucial reagent in preparing several organic compounds requiring bromination.

Other variants are used in the preparation of photographic emulsions, for processing photographic films and paper, in lithography, as an analytical reagent, as a soil fumigant and much more.

Gypsum
Gypsum, formed in crystalline lumps or powder form, is yet another product from the Tata Chemicals stable.

It is used as an ingredient in Portland cement, for soil treatment, and to stabilise volatile compounds and dissolve nitrogenous ones. It also finds use as an inert filler in paints, paper, pharmaceuticals, insecticide dusts, etc.