Inside Al Ghaith Industries: revenue models meet electrolysis

This term our students were hosted by Al Ghaith Industries in ICAD1, Musaffah — home to the biggest chlor-alkali plant in the UAE and one of the largest in the MENA region, producing caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, sodium hypochlorite, calcium chloride and liquefied CO₂.

The business and enterprise group was given a commercial brief: identify an additional revenue stream for the business. They worked through the existing product mix and distribution network, interviewed staff across sales and operations, and pitched their proposal back to the management team — including how it would be costed, packaged and delivered through the company's bulk tanker fleet.

The chemistry group followed the same plant from a completely different angle. Electrolysis stops being a diagram on a whiteboard when you are standing beside a membrane cell operating on Asahi Kasei technology, watching brine become chlorine, hydrogen and caustic soda at 240 MT a day. Students traced the process end to end, then linked what they saw back to their specification: electrode reactions, ion movement across the membrane, purity, yield and energy efficiency.

The result was the same insight from two directions — a plant is simultaneously a chemistry problem and a commercial one, and the people who understand both are the ones who get hired.

Our thanks to the team at Al Ghaith Industries for hosting the cohort. Learn more at alghaithindustries.com. Schools interested in the next round can reach us at innovate@learndustry.com.