24 SITE VISIT
Back: Auguste Piccard, Émile Henriot, Paul Ehrenfest, Édouard Herzen, Théophile de Donder, Erwin Schrödinger, Jules-Émile Verschaffelt, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Ralph Howard Fowler, Léon Brillouin
Middle: Peter Debye, Martin Knudsen, William Lawrence Bragg, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, Paul Dirac, Arthur Compton, Louis de Broglie, Max Born, Niels Bohr
Front: Irving Langmuir, Max Planck, Marie Curie, Hendrik Lorentz, Albert Einstein, Paul Langevin, Charles-Eugène Guye, CTR Wilson, 0wen Willans Richardson
become what is now known as Sanofi. Before the merger, in 1997, Rhône-Poulenc’s chemicals division was spun off into a separate company named Rhodia, which specialised in fine chemistry, synthetic fibres, and polymers. Rhodia was later acquired by Solvay in
2011 for €3.4 billion ($3.9 billion) to boost its offering for beauty and personal care, among other industries. Specialising in hair and skin conditioning polymers and surfactants, Rhodia was seen as a specialities business, with Solvay as a ‘commodities’ business.
The clue is in the name That brings us to the present day. In December 2023, Solvay split into two independent companies – Solvay and Syensqo - in what it called a demerger into “EssentialCo” and “SpecialtyCo”. The rationale for the split was to create more financial value by reducing the complexity of managing so many different businesses as a single entity. The original Solvay name now handles
traditional chemical activities – the ‘essentials’ - like soda, hydrogen peroxide, and adhesives. The new company, Syensqo, is focused on speciality chemicals, including those previously part of Rhodia, such as personal care ingredients. Syensqo was chosen as the name for the
‘SpecialtyCo’ with great care. ‘Sy’ links back to the first and last letters in Solvay; ‘En’ is a nod to Ernest Solvay’s name; ‘Syens’ refers to Solvay’s scientific heritage; ‘Q’ points to Solvay Conferences, which laid the foundations for quantum physics; and ‘Qo’ is for company. In addition to serving the beauty and
personal care sector through its Performance & Care segment, Syensqo delivers speciality polymers and composite materials to a wide range of industries. These include automotive,
PERSONAL CARE August 2025
aerospace, batteries, green hydrogen, semiconductors and healthcare. Syensqo also provides chemical solutions for nutrition, agriculture and mining. Generating sales of €6.56 billion, it reported
a 2024 gross profit of €2.2 billion and an underlying EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization) of €1.4 billion. Syensqo claims that its products feature in
90% of semiconductor chips and smart devices, 85% of flying vehicles, one in every two electric vehicles, and one in three hair care products. Headquartered in Brussels, it has around
13,000 employees in 30 countries - with 2,095 R&I scientists that develop around 125 new patents per year - working at 62 manufacturing sites, and 12 major research and innovation centres. Five of the R&I centres are in Europe, four in the Americas and three in Asia.
The latest in Lyon One such R&I centre is in Lyon, where it recently inaugurated a cutting-edge microbiology laboratory. The Lyon facility is Syensqo’s largest research centre, with a site area of 15 hectares and 28,000m2
of laboratories and pilot units. With 430 Syensqo employees, including
370 scientists, 42% women and 22 nationalities represented, it is a melting pot of talent and ideas with a mission to invent and design materials of the future. The newly operational 550m2
laboratory
enhances Syensqo’s ability to test biodegradability, toxicology and ecotoxicology. Syensqo will work closely with other labs
around the world to significantly boost its ability to respond to customer needs by improving testing efficiency, and reducing time-to-market. By targeting GLP (Good Laboratory
Practices) accreditation, expected in the second
half of the year, the laboratory will also support product registration. In addition, the laboratory - with its
expertise in evaluating the biodegradability of a wide range of difficult-to-assess products - will also become available to support customers and partners through a service model. The lab will enable a dramatic increase in
biodegradation testing capacity, increasing tenfold the number of samples tested compared to 2021. Equipped with advanced capabilities and machine learning, the lab supports the development of biodegradable-by-design solutions, particularly in personal care, home care, agrochemical, adhesives and materials markets. The new lab is divided into four main
sections: biodegradability; ecotoxicology and toxicology; industrial microbiology; and biotechnology.
Biodegradability testing The main aim of the biodegradability section is for the development of high throughput screening tools to evaluate the biodegradability of product prototypes. The biodegradability section of the lab can make up to 32 tests at the same time. “As concerns about microplastics grow,
our customers are paying close attention to the types of polymers included in their formulations,” explains Eric Leroy, Global Segment Director, Beauty Care & Health Care at Syensqo. “There has been significant debate
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