Clariant wins ICIS award for digital catalyst platform

Clariant, a sustainability-focused specialty chemical company, announced that its digital catalyst monitoring platform, Clarity, and its AI-powered evolution, Clarity Prime, have won "Best Digital Innovation" at the ICIS Innovation Awards 2026. The technologies were recognized for transforming catalyst lifecycle management from scattered data and reactive workflows into connected decision-making for a more efficient and sustainable chemical industry. Organized by the Independent Commodity Intelligence Service, the ICIS Innovation Awards are among the chemical and energy industries' recognized distinctions. Since their launch in 2004, they have drawn more than 300 entries and named over 25 winners. The awards recognize products, processes, digital solutions and sustainability initiatives that deliver measurable business, environmental and industry impact. The 2026 winners were announced via the official ICIS website, with a formal celebration planned in London, UK.

Jens Cuntze, Business President Catalysts and APAC, commented, "We are honored to win this prestigious award among such strong competitors. It validates what we set out to build with CLARITY: a genuine partnership between our customers and our experts, connected digitally and delivered in real time. This achievement reflects the seamless collaboration across our CLARITY digital and Applied Catalyst Technology engineering, sales, commercial, and marketing teams, whose combined expertise turned a bold vision into an award-winning reality."

Chandra Ratnasamy, Vice President and Head of Applied Catalyst Technology, added, "CLARITY and CLARITY Prime are more than new technologies – they represent a fundamental shift in how catalyst service is delivered and applied. A single platform connects customers to a global team of more than 250 experts, shortening the path from data to decision. The impact is visible in higher yield, improved energy efficiency, faster troubleshooting, and extended catalyst runs, all of which support more sustainable operations."

Clarity platform

Clarity is a cloud-based digital catalyst monitoring platform provided free of charge to all Clariant catalyst customers. With plant-specific KPI dashboards, standardized data infrastructure and direct communication with catalyst experts, the service replaces fragmented, spreadsheet-driven workflows with evidence-based, collaborative decision-making in real time.

According to Clariant, Clarity is available in eight languages and currently spans more than 250 plants, over 100 companies and more than 800 customers in 42 countries. The platform covers 22 processes across oxidation, hydrogenation, petrochemicals, and syngas and hydrogen applications.

Clarity Prime and AI-based process support

Clarity Prime is the AI-powered evolution of Clarity. Offered as a paid add-on service, it combines machine learning with first-principles process engineering and is calibrated to individual plant configurations.

The technology is tailored to each process. A CO2e Economic Simulator for styrene quantifies the financial and emissions impact of each operating path. An AI Performance Projection tool for ammonia and syngas increases production by up to 10%. An Upset Prediction tool for ethylene helps avoid off-spec waste. Advanced Pattern Recognition for propylene dehydrogenation uncovers feed impurity correlations.

Supported by growing industry adoption and continued AI enhancement, Clariant stated that it is on track to deliver fully digital technical service by 2030.