A 100 years of experience

 

Eka Chemicals started its production of Eka pellets as early as 1904, at the Bengtsfors plant. In 1924,the plant was moved to Bohus, where it still remains.

Over the years, alkali has been manufactured in many different forms:

• Powder  was manufactured between 1904 and the 1970's. At times, powder was made by the grinding of flakes. This was the worst possible job at Eka. Staff members used to cover themselves up in whatever was at hand in order to escape the dust. 
• Flakes  manufactured between the 1930's and the middle of the 80's. 
• Bars manufactured between the 30's and 70's. Long iron plates with crescent-shaped cut-outs were used. Two plates were put together, and the space was filled with alkaline melt. Once this had solidified the plates were removed manually, and the bars (shaped like christmas candles) were collected in boxes and sent away to be packed in glass jars. Every glass jar contained one pound. Under ideal circumstances, around 126 kg (277 pounds) were made in a single shift (8 hours). 

• Pellets  manufactured from 1904 to the present day. In the 1960's, the output was around 1 ton per shift. Today, more than 10 tons are made every day. 

Say what? Yes - there are some odd uses for our products such as:

• Dehorning of cattle - the bars are used for this in the US and Denmark
• Salt sticks - to create the glossy surface, alkali is used to attain the proper pH value (i.e., it is not present in the final product). 

Mr. Hilmersson - who worked in the packaging hall - worked with a phenomenal tempo at 1000 units a day! Manually, he packed pellets from the assembly line into kegs holding 50 kg each and sealed these. It is doubtful whether anyone else could have managed even half of this.